


The stories I didn't write

by Endrina



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:47:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 24,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27935697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Endrina/pseuds/Endrina
Summary: A collection of stories I didn't write during 2020, based on prompts left on Tumblr.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood
Comments: 60
Kudos: 121





	1. Percy the Ministry Spy

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed and unedited. Most of these have a Gen category, but I put Teen because there may be some darker stuff. Nothing graphic, I think, just the usual nastiness related to Voldemort and war.

_Imagine. 1/2 The war has ended & the Wizengamot are currently holding court & reviewing Dumbledore's memories that he saved. In the span of months they find many containing Death Eater spy Severus Snape, & Ministry spy Percy Weasley. With one dead & the other Missing the British wizarding world is thrown upside down as they review the Memories & realise just how much Percy Weasley was a Mastermind Schemer in saving the lives of many Muggle Borns, Goblins, Half-Blood's and Blood Traitors._   
  
_2/2 The Wizarding world are looking for where war hero Percy Weasley is. Especially his family (In this story Percy saves Fred’s life & then vanishes). They see that Percy Weasley had worked as an informant during his entire Ministry career, also being the one who thought out Dumbledore’s death (Shocking the courthouse) “You’re already dying Albus, why not have Severus strengthen his position with the Death Eaters by being your killer?” ‘He used every situation to his advantage to end the war’_

  
  
Ah, the reveal of the wronged hero, what a simple and satisfying trope. It gives us angst, the bitter taste of not being appreciated mixed with the sweet sauce of late recognition, and regret.

  
But Percy doesn’t care about that or any other tropes because he is exhausted. Winning a war is a tiring job and he was doing more than winning. So, as soon as Voldemort keels over and dies, Percy checks that his family is alive (they all are, good job there, Percival) and he makes himself a portkey and goes away.

  
One wizard can’t make a portkey, you say? It takes at least four? Barty Crouch Jr had to imperius three other wizards to enchant the Goblet of Fire? And portkeys don’t work in Hogwarts under normal circumstances?

Well, these are not normal circumstances, there was a battle and Percy has a lot of practice making portkeys, all right? A lot.

  
(There are less than twenty goblins in Britain right now and it is all Percy’s doing).

  
He goes to East Asia because Percy is vaguely aware that a single white man in need of enlightenment and self-discovery should go climb a mountain on Asia. Percy doesn’t climb any mountains, though, because he can never do things as he is supposed to. There must always be a twist. In this case, he gets food poisoning twice and spends over a month trying to learn how to play a plucked string instrument. He is harassed by a flock of geese and meets a talking dragon. He fails to realise that there are no accounts of talking dragons in history (at least the history badly learned and repeated in wizarding Britain). Dragons do not talk nor do they speak. Your brother works in a freaking dragon reserve, for Merlin’s sake, Percy. You should know this.

  
After that Percy goes to the Caribbean, because he feels that his stress-relief and self-discovery journey should also involve a stay in a tropical beach. He doesn’t particularly enjoy the experience because he is a red-head. Also, sand is annoying. He freckles all over, eats a lot of pork, learns to play the maracas, to the locals’ amusement, and leaves.

  
By the time Dumbledore’s memories are uncovered Percy has made his way to a Greek island. He dresses almost exclusively with a t-shirt tied around his waist, like a loincloth, and a pair of trainers. He also carries with him a bag made from a t-shirt like some sort of wild instagrammer. He has all kind of knick-knacks in his bag that he uses to create himself a house at night, as if transfiguring a nutshell into a bed were a normal thing, Percy, you utter maniac.

  
From time to time he goes to a wizarding community and offers to do some chores or magic in exchange of goods. If a goblin woman sees him, she will give Percy a loaf of bread. He has no idea why they do that but it’s very good bread, so Percy is happy to take it. One time Percy met a male goblin and he gave Percy some salt, that he still carries with him. It is possible that for the last seven months Percy had been eating goblin bread and whatever fresh produce the Greek witches offer him in exchange of doing chores.

  
It is at this time that the Puddlemere United goes to Greece to do some pre-season training.

  
(This is something that football teams around Europe do. Go somewhere outside the country to train for a month or two in different conditions. The Manchester United often goes to Malaga, in Spain, for a warm-weather training. I don’t even like football, I don’t know why I know this.)

  
When Oliver Wood sees Percy Weasley standing around in little more than a loincloth, he naturally assumes that he is having a hallucination, a combination of the relentless training under the hot and punishing sun, the hours spent fighting the wind (they don’t know what it is with the wind there, but it will try to kick you off the broom. They are all coming out of this with iron abs) and the constant stories in _The Prophet_ about yet another plot Percival Weasley had conducted saving a dozen lives.

  
“Percy?” Oliver asks, sweaty and thirsty and half mad from training.

  
“Oh, hi, Oliver!” Percy answers, and then, because Percy is simultaneously the cleverest and dumbest wizard alive, “oh shit”.

  
***

  
Percy has not been reading the news. He refuses to. He is on vacation, he is still tired and he has a white hair on his temple. Just the one hair, but Percy is twenty-two and far too young for white hair.

  
Oliver nods. He gets it. He is still telling the Weasley family that he has seen Percy and that he is not dead at all, only slightly insane. But he will wait until he is back in England. Oliver doesn’t know if all the things in the paper are true, but even if Percy has only rescued one thousand five hundred goblins instead of the fifteen thousand the papers claim, he is still entitled to a nice quiet vacation in which clothes are optional.

  
Did Percy Weasley stop a goblin genocide in his free time? Does he not realise it? How dumb is this boy?

  
Come September the owls start to arrive. Letters from the Ministry, from the papers, from his family. Percy watches the owls fly around and doesn’t allow himself to be found. He does read Oliver’s letters and even answers explaining that no, his family is not heart-broken. They were heart-broken five years ago when Percy very publicly acted like an asshole. They got used to it, so there is no need for this new sentimentality now that Percy is on vacation.

  
Percy might be acting a bit like an asshole now, but he has very complicated and ugly feelings over his family and he would rather not think about them. Mostly, he is irked by the fact that they were so quick to follow Dumbledore’s lead. Perhaps because Percy never worked for Dumbledore, he worked with Dumbledore and had the distinct pleasure of pointing to his face, on multiple occasions, what a sly bastard he was. He has little respect for people who never confronted Dumbledore.

  
(So basically Percy only respects Aberforth Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall).

  
Also, Percy always did what he was supposed to: he washed his hands, cared after his siblings, got good grades and yet he was not the favourite son. This is all subconscious, of course, but he resents it.

  
Oliver keeps writing so Percy keeps writing back.

  
  
“Did you actually side-apparate a family with twelve members?” writes Oliver.  
“I have no idea.” Percy writes back. “Wait, do you mean the Johnsons? How are they?”

  
“They are going to give you an Order of Merlin, 1st Class”.  
“Surely they realise I don’t want one.”  
“I think it is evident they realise nothing, Percy.”

  
  
By October it’s getting cold and Percy finds that he doesn’t particularly care about wearing clothes, so he is getting ready to portkey himself to Argentina when Ginny arrives. She has such a driven and purposeful look around her that Percy assumes that she must be in the middle of a very important quest, so he hangs back and follows her as she treks all over the island and vanishes a thousand year old monster. It doesn’t occur to Percy that her quest is finding him and that the monster was merely an unfortunate bystander.

  
Eventually he reveals himself to Ginny because she is screaming incoherently at the sky and Percy thinks that she might be suffering hypoxia and dehydration. Ginny throws the water bottle at his head.

  
“I’m not the jerk here.” Percy says. “I needed a vacation and if you hadn’t seen those stupid memories you would have been fine with me being out of the country indefinitely.”

  
Ginny hexes him seven times, but afterwards she lies on the beach next to Percy and they look at the clouds. They spend a week together, nicely quiet and wild. They go for walks, play on the beach, make a house at night out of random transfigured things (Percy doesn’t notice Ginny’s look of utter bafflement and awe) and eat goblin bread (this time Percy does notice the look but assumes it’s because Ginny loves the taste).

  
Percy refuses to go back with her but he promises Ginny that he will be there for Christmas. Two days later he does go back to England, the bastard. His correspondence with Oliver has become… heated, to put it some way, and waiting a week for the owl to arrive is intolerable.

  
Percy thinks this might be some sort of penance. It’s nippy in England and he can’t be dressed in a t-shirt/loincloth anymore. There is a flock of owls permanently following him, trying to deliver their messages from the Ministry and the papers and maybe, even now, from his family. Worst of all, Oliver writes him all kind of randy letters but refuses to shag Percy, even though he is right there, because of _sports_. Something about turning frustration into spectacular athletic performance, Percy doesn’t know. He is so frustrated that he goes and stops a plan to assassinate Potter all by himself.

  
On Christmas Eve Percy goes home and he is yelled at, cursed at, cried at and loved, very loved, it’s embarrassing. He is rescued from the madness by Potter who easily admits he has been fuelling the newspapers infatuation with Percy because that way they left him slightly in peace.

  
(And on Boxing Day he moves in with Oliver).


	2. The Ministry in Percy the Ministry Spy

_That ask about Ministry Spy Percy, do you think you could write it in the POV of the British wizarding world, please? I’m curious how it all goes down._

How it all goes down? It goes down with Bertha Harrendal thinking about murdering Percy Weasley herself.

Not that she is much of a danger. Bertha was never good enough with charms to qualify as an Auror. Instead, she entered the Winzegamot Administrative Services. One of the many peons needed after the war to put the country back in order, (at least the wizarding part). It is gruesome, tiring and necessary work. They can’t afford to make the same mistakes of the past, the people sent to Azkaban without trial, _innocent_ people, while many guilty ones walked free claiming _imperius_. This time they are doing things right. They owe it to themselves, to the country. They can’t have another war in twenty years. They are going to be better and they are starting now.

Also, bloody Harry Potter, hero extraordinaire, comes every single day to the Wizengamot, every day, even on weekends, to tell them about Sirius Black. (They are not supposed to work on weekends but they are all coming anyway because the work is immense and it keeps growing, lines and lines of names and heinous acts, people disappeared and murdered and people who did the disappearing and the murdering and it is on them to tell who is who).

Eventually, Irene Necker who, legend says, fought a Death Eater with a stapler, snarls at Potter that Sirius Black is dead but the people in her considerable pile of files are not so she will bloody see to them first and isn’t that what Potter wants? To ensure that every file is reviewed, every person given a chance to talk?

It is, and Potter looks adequately taken aback at Irene’s fury and exhaustion. He keeps coming every day because Potter is punishment incarnate, but at least he brings chocolate flapjacks with him. From time to time he has some useful comment like “Malfoy says the Ipswitch attack was Bella Lestrange” or “Malfoy says Gibson is too stupid to be _imperiused_.” Always Malfoy this and Malfoy that until finally he brings them Malfoy himself, looking insultingly beautiful in his healer’s robe, and he answers all their questions. They even get him to agree to testify under oath and veritaserum once Irene offers him a full tray of flapjacks and Thomas, who hasn’t left the Ministry in three weeks, has a small breakdown that ends with him sobbing on Malfoy’s robe and mumbling incoherently that his hair is very shiny.

There are times when Bertha wants to do like their predecessors, draw a quick line of guilty and not guilty and be done. When she started in the Wizengamot she was horrified by the cruel disregard of their predecessors, of Crouch. Now she is horrified by her understanding and almost sympathy. People demand justice and revenge and answers and reparations and none of that can be done quickly. They can’t. Rushing is dangerous.

There are two new newspapers, in addition to _The Prophet_ and _The Quibbler_. Even though _The Prophet_ tries to take itself seriously, their reputation is too damaged. _The Quibbler_ was the herald of truth during the war, but it is still _The Quibbler_. They had an article on wendsing sightings in the Ministry and they all know that was just Rupert leaving the gent’s loo. There is a need for proper reporting and so new media has sprouted. This is good, except for how the journalist are camped by the Winzegamot door.

Irene has been wearing the same robes for the last three weeks. They know because someone in _The Albion Post_ pointed it out. Thomas is working diligently from the nest he has built under the table. He has a lock of Malfoy’s hair pinned on a drawer. Bertha doesn’t want to know what kind of oddity she has, but she is sure she is not unscathed. She might have chewed half of her wand, she is not sure.

Then, on August 20th, (Bertha will remember the date for the rest of her life), Potter comes with Granger bringing a clay pot full of silver mist. Dumbledore’s memories, he says. If Malfoy can help them find the guilty, Dumbledore will help them find the innocent.

On Thursday, Anna McAllister notices that most of those innocent (like Black and Snape and Lupin who was under surveillance for helping Black) are dead and the whole office begins to cry spontaneously and can’t do anything else for the next three hours. The war has ended, but not for them. They are living in it every day, going after every atrocious act, every tragedy. At some point Malfoy come around, still in his undeservingly well—fitting healers robe, casting cheering charms and giving them calming potions. Thomas grabs him by the neck of his robes and plants a big sloppy kiss on his mouth. Malfoy’s look of utter dumbfounded confusion, together with his posh “there, there, man, put yourself together” does wonders for Bertha’s mood.

And then they get to Percy Weasley, loyal collaborator of Thicknesse’s Ministry, suspected Death Eater, BLOODY UNDERCOVER SPY FOR DUMBLEDORE. WHAT? Bertha goes all the way to the top floor of the Ministry, crosses outside, and screams for a full minute, scaring a couple of pigeons. Then she realises that she can’t remember when was the last time she was outside, so she goes home walking slowly and blinking at the white sky.

The next day Anna McAllister tells her that she, Bertha, and Thomas have been put in charge of the Weaesley Investigation (it is written like that on the blackboard, with far too many es) and that it is even worse than they thought because apparently Percy Weasley wasn’t just a spy, he was The Spy and he was involved in everything. And they are the unfortunate sods that have to make some sense out of it.

Saturday is Percy came with the idea of Snape assassinating Dumbledore.

Sunday is Percy side apparating a whole family, including the dog, right when Dolohov was casting a killing curse.

Monday is Percy contacting the goblin London clan and saving them from being rounded up and killed.

Tuesday is selkie day. Apparently the selkies were very grateful that Percival had saved two dozens of their kind (when? They can’t find any mention of it) and they offer their services to pass information to the continent.

Wednesday is Percy telling Dumbledore off for raising Potter for the slaughter. This had nothing to do with any of the open investigations, but they all like to watch it.

Thursday is Percy finding MacNair, duelling him, disarming him, causing a permanent injury to his right arm, evacuating a family of goblins and then returning to Macnair, blurring his memories and implanting a spying charm on him before sending him back to Voldemort. The spying charm seems to be an adaptation of one of Weasley’s Wizards Wheezes products.

Friday, they have Fred and George Weasley down to ask them about the products, their involvement in the war and their brother Percy. It puts everybody in a good mood. Then they say they don’t know where Percy is, he disappeared right after the Battle of Hogwarts and hadn’t been in contact since then, and Thomas grabs George Weasley by the front of his robes and screams “I will eat your face” at the top of his lungs.

Suddenly it’s September and Bertha is crying in Rita Skeeter’s lap, saying that if she and all her ilk like questions so much they should ask themselves where the hell is bloody Percival Ignatius Weasley, one eighty centimetres, blue eyes, red hair, glasses, no recognisable marks or scars, please. It is not fair that bloody Rita and Reggy and, sorry, I don’t know your name _Magical Times_ girl _,_ they all keep asking _her_ questions, but Bertha has questions of her own. The Ministry is looking for Percy Weasley in relation to 56 open investigations.

Bertha takes back every unkind thing she had ever said about Harry bloody Potter. Potter comes to her with a tub of ice-cream and the suggestion that perhaps the press could render the Ministry a service by helping them locate war hero Percy Weasley. The world deserves to know his story, and this is a great chance for people to see how the diligent Wizengamot clerks are tirelessly working in their quest for justice and reparations. He actually says “diligent” and “quest”. He has such an heroic aura that Reggie, from the _Albion Post,_ offers to swear an unbreakable vow to share Weasley’s whereabouts with Bertha as well as any and all information gathered, as soon as it has gone to press. The others follow suit and Potter says magnanimously that he bears witness and their word is enough for him.

Thus begins the hunt for Percy Weasley, which is an absolute failure because the power of the press amounts to _nothing_.

In early October, George Weasley comes to the Winzengamot and informs them from the door that Percy Weasley is in a Greek island and doesn’t want to be contacted. Further inquiries should be directed to Oliver Wood, the one who found Percy. Only Oliver Wood is a very successful quidditch player and his coach protects him and the rest of the team like a mother dragon. No one is to bother his delicate players, not even Ministry officials.

They have to use a ruse, siccing Thomas at the coach (“give me answers or I will pluck my own eyes!”) while Anna pretends to innefectualy contain him and Bertha sneaks into the locker room to talk to Oliver Wood.

It is a testament to how tired Bertha is that she doesn’t register that she is in a locker room with four handsome, _very_ handsome, men in different states of undress. She just wants to find Percy so he can clarify his involvement in the Eynsham incident.

(Five hundred lives saved that day by their most careful estimations. Five hundred. And neither Thickness nor Voldemort realised a thing).

“I understand you are tired,” Oliver Wood says. Nice man. Seems very understanding. “So is Percy. He needs some rest.”

“I just want to close one file,” Bertha begs, sitting on the floor. “We have 78 open investigations and they all involve him.”

She has personally written seventy eight formal letters requiring Percy’s assistance and testimony. Seventy eight, like that, 78 looks too short. It’s seventy eight.

In fact, Bertha has actually written eighty five letters. There are the seventy eight formal ones and the seven demented informal letters in which Bertha let out all her frustration and exhaustion in the form of increasingly bizarre threats. It was very therapeutic. She is glad that Weasley, extraordinary hero, didn’t get to read her promise to take the Order of Merlin First Class and personally shove it through one of his orifices. The man has saved over a thousand lives. He shouldn’t have to read that kind of abuse.

“There, there,” says Oliver Wood, patting her on the head. He smells like a summer day.

XXX

On January, Potter drops by the Wizengamot, as always, and Irene screams at him as soon as she sees him, as always, because Potter is awful. As soon as Irene had closed the file on Severus Snape (acquitted of all charges and posthumous Order of Merlin awarded) Potter had coughed and said “So, Regulus Black,” and Irene had come close to achieving what the Dark Lord couldn’t.

This time Potter brings donuts and some leftovers from Mrs Weasley’s famous fruit cake. He also comes with a present, a napkin with a declaration about the Johnson case signed by Percy Weasley. 

It takes Bertha ten years to close all the files.


	3. Percy Hanahaki

_Hi, So there's this fictional disease called Hanahaki Disease where the patient grows flowers inside their lungs from unrequited love and all. (It doesn't have to be unrequited love, can be betrayal and all that. You can mess around with it) And I personally Love Percy, so if this disease hits him during the second war it would be understandable. And most likely due to how his family treats him during the years can be a major player in why he develops it._

Percy starts coughing petals during the war and he is extremely confused. He knows about the Hanahaki, of course, but he doesn’t understand _why_ it’s happening. It is not Penelope and it is not his family. The split with them was long coming and the argument with his father about Fudge was a trigger like any other. Percy has felt unappreciated by his family for years. It was bound to happen.

Still, Percy contacts Charlie - who is oddly reasonable and sage when less expected - and Bill - who likes to play the mature firstborn giving life advice to his younger siblings - and it makes no difference. He argues with Bill and he gets Charlie to see his point of view and admit they didn’t always have the best family dynamic. (Of course the brother who buggered off to Romania can see Percy’s point, he put a whole continent between him and his family). Percy is still coughing petals and brokenhearted and he doesn’t know why.

When he hears that Death-Eaters went after the twins and that they had to flee their shop Percy finally gets it. It is not his family. He worries about the twins, of course, but he knows they are safe at Aunt Muriel’s by now. He also understands that he is mourning the Burrow, the life there, the innocence of childhood. Even though Percy didn’t get to be much of a child because there was a war and he remembers all of it: the fear, the responsibility to keep his younger siblings in check. But it was simple time and he misses it.

Now that he knows what provoked the Hanahaki he gets better. He stills coughs petals from time to time but it doesn’t affect him as much and, always practical, Percy is using the petals for potions. They work really well to counteract curses.

When Fred dies it gets worse, much worse. Percy can barely speak and it’s all because of the flowers taking over his lungs and throat and heart. He quits his job by letter and moves to a cheap place in the country where he doesn’t have to speak to anyone.

There are many curses remaining from Voldemort’s reign, powerful and nasty curses on people and places. Malfoy Manor is so bad that in a fit of brilliant madness Draco Malfoy burns it to the ground to get rid of all of them. He probably saves a couple of hundred lives with his new-found pyromania.

But not everybody can afford to clean a curse with fire. Sometimes the curse is on a person or an event. Did you know that Voldemort cursed the day Harry Potter was born? You can’t brew potions or cast charms on that day because they will turn out wrong and against you.

Bill was the curse-breaker of the family, but at Gringotts he mostly works ensuring that curses stay put and improve security. It is Percy who works breaking and removing curses. He has a touch unlike any other curse-breaker. He is neat and clean and delicate and no one has figured out that he is using his own desolation and the Hanahaki to get the best results. When other curse-breakers leave smoke and ash behind them, Percy is like the sun and the wind and the rain and everything that makes a flower bloom. He not only removes, he heals.

And then, one day, a latent hidden curse breaks during a Quidditch game. It would have been a catastrophe but thankfully Harry Potter and Ron Weasley are still big Quidditch fans and they were there to stop the worst of it. No casualties, a few injuries, a freaking big scare, and of course the idiotic and brave Quidditch Keeper who threw himself in front of the curse. Oliver saved lots of lives. Even more than Draco Malfoy, who is oddly relived because he doesn’t like the hero spot that much.

But Oliver is now dying in St Mungo. Or his body his dying, they are not sure where Oliver Wood is. Hermione’s current hypothesis is that he is inside the curse, or what remains of it floating over the Quidditch stadium. If they remove the curse they will lose Oliver’s soul forever. Not that they can get Oliver’s soul out of the curse.

And you can imagine the rest.

Percy will have to find himself a new profession. He is not as good at removing curses without the Hanahaki.


	4. Draco the Spy

_Omg what if Draco was also a spy for Dumbledore? Like imagine him biting his tongue when everyone is hateful and cruel to him cuz he's gonna have the last laugh when it comes out he was a spy. And in this version Percy still fucks off. Draco stays behind cuz he wants to see everyones reactions (especially his asshole boss that made his life fucking hell) He could be a seer in this and secretly became friends with Harry during Hogwarts. Idk, add whatever you want_ _❤_

Ha! I don’t know why that “Idk” at the end made me laugh.

I have different mental versions of Draco. I can see him more or less happy, more or less certain of what he wants to do or of his relationship to the wizarding world. Other things are fixed. They are the things that make him Draco and appear in all versions of him, like:

1.- He can draw. He might have more or less practice, but he can draw pretty well.

2.- He is smart in the sense of doing very well academically, being able to understand something instantly. He doesn’t need to put many study hours, so he doesn’t.

3.- He doesn’t like Dumbledore. Regardless of his relationship with his father and Voldemort, he just doesn’t like Dumbledore as a person. It has nothing to do with how Dumbledore treats people (although that certainly doesn’t help) it’s more visceral. Just like some people will look at an actor or celebrity and go “no, I do not find Jimmy Fallon funny and can’t tell you why”. This is the same.

So Draco would never become a spy for Dumbledore. Dumbledore’s spy, hell no.

However, at some point Draco looks at Voldemort’s white flabby face and thinks “oh, no, I’m not doing this.” He decides he is going to work against Voldemort, but with whom?

(Draco is very proud of knowing when to use “whom” and also lives in fear of getting it wrong).

Draco has to find someone who can be an actual challenge against Voldemort. The Ministry is out because they are stupid, incompetent and infiltrated to the brim. And who else is there? Potter? Draco goes to class with Potter. He has seen how he spells, meaning both his charm use (Potter knows one and a half spells and that’s it) and his orthography. He simply can’t consider Potter a serious contender against Voldemort. Nothing against him, Draco actually, (secretly) kind of likes the guy, but Voldemort can read minds, knows all kind of ancient magic and performs incredibly complex curses and conjurations.

Draco has seen Potter lick ice-cream out of his t-shirt.

If Draco wants to get rid of Voldemort, there is only Dumbledore. Draco doesn’t spy for him. He does nothing regarding Dumbledore that involves the preposition ”for”.

But he shares information. There is a “to” in there. Give information _to_ Dumbledore. He can do that. Draco is quite smart, so he is able to deduce Voldemort’s strategy from little clues. He knows about Voldemort’s quest for information (both for the prophecy and the elder wand) months in advance.

This does not happen in the same universe as Percy Ministry Spy, but Percy is acting as a spy nevertheless. This means that Dumbledore has a pretty easy run setting his plans in motion and ensuring Voldemort’s defeat. It also means that he suffers though some absolutely _miserable_ months which probably have something to do with his enthusiasm for the let-Draco-kill-me plan.

Each and every interaction with Draco is a reeling experience. Draco is not handing the information for nothing. He wants Voldemort dead by next month and when Dumbledore doesn’t deliver, he complains. He _complains_ (note the italics). Draco doesn’t ask for the manager because there isn’t one, but he actually asks if Dumbledore has any older siblings Draco could talk to. You could say Draco acts entitled, demanding and full of expectations, but those words mean nothing. Draco breathes past entitlement to land somewhere between “Angel of Vengeance” and “Greek fury”, only instead of a flaming sword or claws he has attitude and an excellent command of grammar. What a horrible little child. 

Meanwhile, Snape has developed the habit of twisting every conversation so he can say “pity you don’t have any other orphan available to sacrifice” and “oh, if only we had a child to endanger” and “yes, but how can we solve this by killing a child?”. It is very rich coming from him. Dumbledore is not amused. Apparently there is a line for Severus Snape and that line is drawn when sacrificing oneself for the greatest good.

(“Ah, but it is not yourself who will do the sacrifice, is it?” Snape says, and a week later Dumbledore tells Draco that of course he will let him kill him. Draco scoffs and rolls his eyes as if somehow that wasn’t enough).

And then, there is Percy Weasley. Neither Snape nor Draco are supposed to know about him, but they both know and it is unclear how. Probably Percy himself let them know (no, he didn’t). He would do something like that (no, he wouldn’t). Percy is a horrid nightmare (he… he may be). Dumbledore despises him (and how!). Snape will talk about Dumbledore not doing the greater sacrifice but Dumbledore honestly can’t think of anything worse than working with Percival Weasley.

(70% of Dumbledore’s dislike comes from the suspicion that Percy might be two or three points more intelligent than him. After almost a century used to being the most intelligent person in the room by far, Dumbledore does not like this new scenario. He misses Grindelwald.)

Dumbledore dies. Then so does Potter (briefly), followed quickly by Voldemort (permanently). Surprisingly, Snape also jumps into this dying fashion until he thinks better about it and survives, although severely wounded. Percy doesn’t die but as soon as the battle had ended and all Death Eaters are either dead or apprehended, he dissaparates right there from the Hogwarts grounds.

He sends a postcard to Draco a month later, which is kind of nice. There is also one for Snape and Draco props it next to the vase of flowers by his sickbed.

Thus begins the After-War.

By day two, Draco understands why Weasley left so quickly. It is a fucking disaster. Potter has to plant himself by Snape’s bed to stop the Ministry from arresting him. The man is barely coherent and barely alive and yet they wanted to interrogate him and transport him to a holding cell. The Ministry. The ones who allowed themselves to be infiltrated.

It is perhaps unsurprising that when the Ministry sends a hastily formed examining tribunal to Hogwarts, so students can sit their OWLs and NEWTs in August, the examining tribunal refuses Draco.

Draco doesn’t particularly care. He is rich enough that he doesn’t need to work and, in any case, once they finally start proper investigations and find Dumbledore’s trove of notes and testimonies in his sealed will, Draco will be exonerated and recognised as the hero he is. This insult or punishment, whatever you call the Tribunal’s unfair treatment of him, doesn’t hurt. Draco is immune to their attacks.

Soon after, he receives a letter from bloody Hermione Granger saying of course he can sit his exams, they expect him on Tuesday at ten. McGonagall will be there to put the fear of herself on the Tribunal and ensure they are fair.

And… he appreciates her intervention, he really does. Awfully nice of her. True moral backbone. It’s just that… Draco actually enjoyed the insult? He realises now that he only attempted to sit the exams because he expected them to say no.

He sits the exams and aces them. They are particularly hard in the last one, the astronomy test. McGonagall coughs three times, rolls her eyes and finally says “bloody enough, don’t you think? He has shown he knows the material.” He sends her a handwritten thank-you letter just to be annoying.

Draco realises that his behaviour is very odd, but given that Weasley has fucked off to somewhere and that Snape refuses to heal so he won’t have to talk to people, Draco believes he is entitled to some oddities of his own. Thus, he begins collecting insults. From the low-brow and simple “Death-Eater scum” to the vitriolic “murderer”. The best, and the worst, are the ones that don’t come wrapped in words. Shunning and discrimination. Oh! He can’t explain it, but they taste tart and sweet.

He likes it. Not the dismissing, no, but the idea that they don’t know him and that their judgement of him is wrong. If that means they will also _wrong him_ and treat him badly, so be it. It doesn’t change the fcat that he and Snape and Percy Weasley are the heroes of the war.

He applies to a mediwizard program and is naturally denied. Then he tries a traineeship at the Wizengamot, also denied. Just for the fun of it, he applies to the Auror Office and receives a wonderful letter of rejection that has an actual dead spider inside the envelope.

It has been three months since the end of the war now and Weasley refuses to let himself be found. Snape barely manages to stay awake for three hours, and only with Draco. Evidently the stress of the war did a number on them, so it’s perfectly understandable if Draco keeps prodding and asking and applying to things knowing full well that he will get a resounding “no”.

You would think this was some sort of atonement for his past misbehaviour and his admittedly awfully narrow views and even more abysmal manners regarding muggleborns, but Draco is quite sure he atoned for all of that when he _lied to Voldemort’s face_ and, more terrifyingly, _he lied to Aunt Bella’s face_ , stole their secrets and passed them to Dumbledore. He doesn’t need to punish himself any more.

No, it’s just… it’s just hard. He has spent three years with a carefully crafted lie as his only protection. It is not so easy to discard it. He liked that lie. It kept him alive.

And then, come October, the Ministry takes Malfoy Manor and all associated assets. Just like that. Puff. Seized. They haven’t even begun an official investigation on Draco, but they have taken _his house_ as a precaution.

Now it’s personal.

It turns out that Draco is a vindictive asshole, who would have guessed? Probably everyone but him. Doesn’t matter. He will make them pay. The Ministry, the papers who ran the headline about Draco becoming homeless, and the people who cut the page and framed it. They will regret it.

He moves into Snape’s ugly cottage because he has no other place to go and if Snape has any objections, he can say so when he pleases. Oh? He can’t talk? Too bad, then.

The Ministry has also seized his funds and Draco draws a line at using Snape’s meager savings (he assumes they are meager, he hasn’t actually checked) so he gets a job in the only place that would employ him: a seedy tea shop in the North side of Diagon Alley. The only reason the owner hired him was because the previous assistant tried to burn the place down and he was in a bit if a rush to find a replacement. After a week, Draco understands why someone would want to burn the place down, and that’s before his boss realises that Draco is drawing a small crowd of people who like seeing him serving tables. From then on, he takes to screaming and insulting Draco for absolutely everything before turning to his customers with a smug smile.

Every time he or any of the customers complains, Draco smiles a cheap version of the smiles he used to give Voldemort and vows. Sometimes their words sting and sometimes they break against his armour. He lives in a weird state between immunity and pain.

Dumbledore’s actual true will, to be opened by Hermione J. Granger (funny how he didn’t address it to Potter) is found in late December. Given the state of the Ministry, Draco expects that they will only get around summoning Granger by early February at best.

Weasley sends another postcard around Christmas. This one comes with an address, in case either he or Snape also want to drop everything and fuck off, he supposes. Draco writes back explaining he is bidding his time to exact just retribution over all those who wronged him and Snape is in no condition to travel. Weasley writes, well, he doesn’t write, he sends a third postcard with quite a nice drawing of a thumbs up.

Snape can now sit up and read the paper. He still can’t get a single sound out, but he can manage sighing in a very meaningful way. They receive another summons to have Snape declare before a Tribunal and he groans before passing out and staying unconscious the next two days.

All things considered, Draco is evidently the one coping better so he feels he can afford a little extravagant behaviour like sitting in front of a mirror and practicing his own sighs of heroic suffering for when the vindication comes.

It comes in March.

The world goes absolutely _insane._ People knew that Snape had done… something, mostly because Potter had very obnoxiously advocated on his behalf.

(Potter is so obnoxious. He comes every Tuesday to Draco’s tea shop and asks for a cup of tea that he barely touches and stays there for an hour saying nothing).

But they had no idea of the extent Snape’s involvement. None. All the curses he surreptitiously knocked aside, all the misfired spells. It wasn’t just gaining Voldemort’s trust and acting on Dumbledore’s plans, he, Snape, personally saved two dozen lives with none the wiser. He was so good at acting covertly!

That should be enough to make any good newspaper editor foam in their mouth, but there is _more_. There is Weasley, going twenty steps ahead and being ridiculously clever and talented and just… knowing what to do. There is already a shrine to him in Coleraine because he did something very important there and the locals were merely waiting to find a name to put to it. Percy Weasley has been declared tax exempt in all of Ireland. 

Draco merely has a meager thirteen lives saved on his ledger, _but_ he also has three years of cleverly betraying Voldemort. It doesn’t look like much, but once details emerge of how he stole information and passed it to Dumbledore, the whole thing becomes charming. Double-o-Drac-o, is what the muggleborns are calling him. Snape assures him it’s a good thing, but he doesn’t elaborate because he is a bastard who pretends that writing tires him horribly.

Snape wasn’t planning on surviving the war and for the first time in years he is unprepared. He deals with it by trying to shut the world out. If he wasn’t so weak from his wounds, Draco is quite certain that Snape would have buggered off to wherever Weasley is now, to sit on the sun and be silent together. He certainly does not appreciate the wizarding world’s earnest interest in him. You would think that the fact that he can’t (or, at this point, won’t) speak would deter them a bit, but it only adds to Snape’s tragic charm. Some women and many young men are particularly attracted by it. Fortunately, Draco has only had to chase two of them out of the house because even though Snape can’t say a word, he remains very skilled at non-verbal magic so he hexes every journalist and deranged fan that has the misfortune of coming close to him. Meanwhile, Weasley doesn’t want to be found (“nooooo” says his last postcard, Draco is a bit worried at the lack of capitalization) and has a ten-month head start. He won’t be found.

This means there is only Draco. Shameful bronze medal in the saving-lives business, but with a delicious aura of cleverness and bravery, a whole year of suffering in silence during the post-war, and a face that was made to be dramatically lighted, photographed and printed in the front page.

 _Wil you answer our questions, Mister Malfoy?_ Oh, but he will, he will answer every one of their questions and give all details. _No one_ has given so much, sacrificed so much, suffered so much as him.

“I literally died, Malfoy.”

“And I couldn’t afford dying, Potter. I had to survive. Now, get out, these people have some more questions.”

Potter has moved from coming every Tuesday to the stupid tea shop to visiting them at Snape’s cottage. Draco only lets him in because he might annoy Snape into talking. Plus, he is nimble, he can avoid all of Snape’s hexes and the extra exercise will do Snape good.

His relationship with Potter is… strange, but fittingly so. Everything else has been weird lately, why not this? Potter had always elicited interest, but once people learned that Dumbledore had more or less raised him for the slaughter and that when Potter found out he nevertheless went ahead and _died_ , the press and the public in general went even more rabid. You would think that with so many shocking stories the scandals would dull each other. But, far from that, the public is on fire, _incensed_ , and each piece of news is kindling for the flames.

Potter, unfortunately, does not have a photogenic face (he tends to look like a sad lost deer in all pictures) and all the attention stresses him out. Draco offers him a mutually beneficial deal: Draco will take care of the press for him and Potter will stop the Ministry from returning the manor and his fortune.

“How is that beneficial?”

“I want to tell the press that they took it from me with no evidence before they have the chance to hand it back.”

“Ah, fair enough.” Potter says. He does not seem to be a big fan of the Ministry, which is a pity because this time the Minister is not attempting to kill him, use him, or run a smear campaign against him, unlike the previous ones. It seems that the odd behaviour isn’t restricted to Weasley, Snape and him. The other Weasley (Ronald), Granger and Potter are also displaying oddities. Mostly, there is a lot of yelling at the Ministry (Granger) and at every single adult who ever interacted with Potter (Weasley, Ron). Potter isn’t doing any yelling, but he has taken to following Draco around and chatting at Snape.

(No, not “to” or “with”, “at”. He chats at Snape and Snape suffers in silence having accepted that Potter will deflect every hex thrown his way).

Draco doesn’t judge. He is still working at the horrible tea shop with the even more horrible and petty owner (who has no idea how to treat Draco now and spends every waking second alternating between insults and clumsy flattery) simply because he wants to lord over the Ministry that they took his house and money. If Potter feels like he has to follow Draco and harass Snape into making a full recovery, so be it.

There is, of course, the question of Weasley (Ronald) wanting to know where the only tolerable Weasley (Percy) is. Draco doesn’t tell, despite having his address on postcard number 2. That would be a betrayal bigger than anything he did to Voldemort. He could never do that to a person who managed to annoy Dumbledore so much.

What he does is sit down with two cups of tea and explain to Weasley (Ronald) what his brother did and what he went through and why he might not want to interact with anyone he knows when, instead, he could be lying face down on a nudist beach in Spain. It helps. Weasley (Ronald) doesn’t track his brother down, but he manages to get him to reply to his letters. He is overjoyed.

The news about having lost his ancestral home and fortune come out and people are adequately irate. Draco enjoys it, but not as much as he expected. Some people squirm and blush and walk into doors with the embarrassment of how badly they judged him. Some even apologise to his face which is frankly disrespectful because then Draco has to be civil to them. Overall it is unsatisfying. He wants more, but he doesn’t know what he wants.

He almost accepts one of the multiple offers he keeps receiving to enter this or that prestigious program. He would make a good a lawyer. Fortunately, Weasley (the cool one) talks him out of it via postcard. The postcard has nothing written on it other than a smiley face (evidently the brother talks are going well) but it shakes something inside him.

This gives him the idea of apologising to Longbottom (extremely uncomfortable for both of them) and Granger, who gets him in a number or boards and committees as punishment. Draco competes to be the most disliked person in each committee, which is hard because Granger is in some of them. She asks for immediate liberation of house-elves and a transition program for them and Draco finds himself demanding (just like he did with Dumbledore, full of bile and entitlement) historic reparations. Each blood-line who ever held a house-elf will contribute proportionally to the transition program. He gets death threats over it, it’s great.

Two years after the end of the war, Draco finds himself back in his manor, with most of his money (he doubled his contribution to the elf fund because then the families who want to wash their names would have to do the same) and, mysteriously, Harry Potter in his bed. He has no idea how that happened. He is quite certain he was too busy being a little shit to seduce anyone. Was he seduced when he wasn’t looking? How dare he?

He also has half a dozen very important postcards on his mantelpiece. The only thing he doesn’t have is an ex-Death Eater, ex-potion professor, living in his mansion because the old bastard finally got well enough to say “bugger off, both of you” and then fled to Ireland where the nice Weasley has got a nice little cottage of his own. 


	5. Draco Hanahaki

_I read this Hannah fic and a line says "Hanahaki isn't caused by unrequited love, its caused by feeling unlovable" Like person A gets it and they feel hopeless and all cuz they love person B so much but person A feels like its not possible, that it'll never happen. There can be many factors as to why. Like Draco gets it years after the war and his actions still haunt him, how can Harry love him? Ect. So its all angsty and ends with Harry crying and convincing Draco that he loves him._

Mmh, see, this is precisely why I am not a big fan of Hanahaki. I like very much the idea of being happy even if love doesn’t work out. I mean, just because that person doesn’t love you back, you don’t have to be miserable.

Also, love doesn’t work in a merit system and it is one of the most unfair and chaotic forces in life. Love is born in the other person, not in you. You aren’t loved because you deserve it, you are loved simply because that other person loves you. You can be full of wonderful qualities and still the magic spark won’t happen and that person won’t love you, and it is not you, it’s them. You can be a disaster and still have someone’s love. The most you can do is be your best self, for yourself.

I always picture adult Draco as someone very independent. He spent his childhood doing what others expected of him, so now that he is an adult he is doing his own thing, right or wrong. If, in a moment on weakness, (perhaps another Friday night staying home, or seeing a couple holding hands and feeling that pang of jealousy and want) he got Hanahaki, he would be appalled, offended at himself, aghast, shocked. Draco Malfoy would stick his whole hand inside his mouth and rip the Hanahaki plant straight out. Draco was miserable enough in Hogwarts, he is not going to suffer unnecessarily a single minute. And If Harry likes that random person, Draco will help him seduce them and he will be happy on his behalf because Harry deserves some love in his life and five minutes with no conflicts whatsoever, thank you very much. Proactive despair, is how Draco calls it.

And maybe they, he and Harry, will meet someone who is also afflicted from Hanahaki. A war widow perhaps, dying of sadness and longing for the person that was taken from them. Draco would say, rather rudely, to stop mopping and get up and be happy because they owe it to that person who died too young to be happy for the both of them. Harry is appalled at his bluntness, of course. That was terrible, Draco. Show some tact.

Then Draco would offer to remove the plant and Harry would stare, horror and outrage and laughter all tumbling together, as Draco sticks his whole hand inside that poor person’s mouth, a knee on their chest so they won’t move, and takes the blasted plant out. “It leaves a terrible aftertaste,” Draco says “but I find that chewing some liquorice roots helps. Do call me when it regrows.”

And Harry of course notices the “I find” that says that Draco has personal experience, and remembers seeing him chewing liquorice after Ginny and Blaise’s wedding and many other times after that, and he hangs to the terrible “when”. Call me _when it regrows_ , not _if_.

“What the fuck”, he thinks.

Fortunately, Harry is also of a mind that he should be very happy to make up for all the years of not being happy at all. It’s pretty much the reason he and Draco had developed their weird friendship. They keep meeting at every concert and theatre show and exhibition. So, because Harry is resolved to be happy, that very night he grabs Draco and kisses him and there is no crying at all.


	6. Dad Percy

_So i got another fic idea in my head The dates are very important. 1 (May 1998) Percy was a Ministry spy and he worked closely with Albus. He saved a lot of lives no matter their blood or if they were creatures. And at the battle of Hogwarts he saves Freds life but hes in crit condition George is a total ass (He's angry and takes it out on Percy) going off at him saying nasty things along the lines of that Percy isn't welcome at the Weasley home anymore._

_2 When he tries to go to the House to talk to them he's not treated very well ("Dont wanna hear excuses Percy"). He just give up, packs his things in his flat, & the next morning he goes, gives his mission reports that date from the start of his Ministry career along with his resignation letter on Shacklebot's desk. Then he's off to America to start over he snuck into Freds hospital room & used Snapes healing charms as a way to 'set things right' before leaving._

_3) Percy is now in New York, gets a job, and then spends the next 6 months working diligently and whatnot. Then he meets Audrey Smith, they end up going on a few dates and she introduces Percy to her local gym and they become gym buddies and soon start dating. (Aug 2000) After 2 years together (They're married) Percy and Audrey find out they're expecting. And then the twins are born on the 2nd of May 2001. Percy laughs a bit as Audrey pats him the shoulder and says "They sure chose the date"_

_4) Sep 11 2001) Audrey dies in the 9/11 attack (she was a muggle) & Percy is left a widow with 2 daughters to look after. (June 2002) He bumps into Oliver who's on a quidditch training exchange. They catch up. (Oliver doesn't bring up the fact that Percy's fam has been looking for him for years and that he's saved so many lives) As December rolls around Oliver spends it at Percy's, meeting the kids and hearing Percy tell him everything (His wife, his family and the war)_

_(I think this is part 5? Idk its 2am here) (Jan - May) They spend a lot of time together after Xmas and slowly Percy begins to heal a bit more after Audrey's death. Oliver ends up going back to the UK and Percy misses him. (July) Oliver comes back with news that he's transferred to an NY team "They might not be big on Quidditch here but they're extremely good, Perce" (Its not because Oliver has been inlove with Percy since Hogwarts. Neither is it because he loves Molly & Lucy to death either)_

_6 (Feb 2004) The UK Papers get a picture of Oliver, Percy the twins out and it BLOWS UP. Charlie (The only one who even heard Percy out back after the war ended, He knows the others did wrong by him) floos in and then warns Percy about everyone knowing he's here and that they're gonna be coming in 2 days. So He ends up having Charlie take the girls. He ends up meeting with his fam and it takes a long long time for them to heal and fix things._

_7) His Fam only get to meet Molly and Lucy when they're 6. When they're 7 he and Oliver gets married. Idk why but i seem to only send you these fic ideas when im hella tired and at 2am. T_T Why am i like this? So Audrey named Molly and Perce named Lucy (After each others moms)_

Honestly, What can I say at this point? You have the whole story thought out. Go for it and write it!

It’s not the kind of story I write, though. But since you dropped the materials here, I can share how I would assemble it.

I would avoid New York. Big cities have a character. They _are_ characters and you have to treat them as such. In _Life skills_ , London is a character, complex and big and hard and beautiful. In _Secret language of plants_ , even though Draco and Harry end up in London, I had them stay in the house because London was too big of a character for that stage of the story.

So, no New York. If I had to use a well-known city I would go with Boston, I think. Otherwise, a small one with a nice name.

Audrey doesn’t die on 9/11. Well, she dies on that day, but not on the attack. It’s something as simple and dull as a traffic accident. Percy wasn’t with her, not that it would have mattered. Yes, wizards have potions to mend bones instantly and protective charms and spells to stop the momentum, but Audrey died instantly, and no one could have seen the car until it was on her.

The driver was an old man, fumbling with that new invention, a mobile phone, trying to call his daughter who worked in New York.

Magic Law on the States is a bit… over the place. It would be extremely simple to put a curse or a hex on that man. If Percy was clever about it, it wouldn’t be too illegal. But he doesn’t. Percy realises it wouldn’t make him feel better.

Percy doesn’t particularly like the States. The tea is terrible, the coffee is weak, the spelling is painful and people are entirely too talkative. But it’s sunnier than England and the orange juice is good, so he stays.

He goes to Romania every summer to visit Charlie. The girls love it there and it was always easy to talk to Charlie. Charlie who had such a promising career in Quidditch and rejected the fame and fortune for a thankless career working with dragons. Not even training dragons for bank security, which is a cool and profitable career, but fighting that very same use.

Charlie only goes back home for a week during Christmas, so he gets it. They don’t have to talk about it, never mention that weird state of loving your family and not wanting to be with them, to fight, to have to explain and justify your very existence and your life decisions.

He meets Oliver in Romania. Supposedly Oliver is there to see the sights and rest his left shoulder, that was injured at the end of the league. But he is not the first Quidditch player who has a crisis of faith and comes to Charlie with questions. So far, none of them had taken up dragon-protection, but one became a broomstick racer and another is the head coach of an Italian team.

Charlie only thinks about dragons. Oliver only thinks about Quidditch and is in the middle of an existential crisis. So it’s perfectible understandable that the topic of Percy, his war heroics and his semi mythical status is never brought up. To be fair, Charlie doesn’t know much about it because he doesn’t read English newspapers and his family never talks about Percy when he is around. Oliver just thinks that Percy is the first Competent Adult he has ever met and is much more interested about this Figuring Life Out than any hero status.

So it’s fair to say that the headlines come as a surprise.

Someone snapped a picture of Oliver and Percy sitting very close together in a park, with twin stupid loving smiles. It was all perfectly innocent. Molly was doing something cute out of frame and they never kept any physical distance between themselves, not even in Hogwarts. But it doesn’t matter. The picture is sold as proof of the mysterious war hero and the dashing sport star carrying a secret love affair. It’s a beautiful story, powerful. Percy is the tragic handsome hero and Oliver the right person to bring love back into his life after years nursing the wounds of war. Or perhaps Oliver is the sweet and honest good boy, the boyfriend every mother wants for her daughter, seduced by the man living a life of exotic and daring adventures.

Whatever it is, the world wants to believe in it. So much so that bloody Draco Malfoy pops up to warn them that there is a dozen of rabid, ruthless, paparazzies coming their way. He knows because Malfoy owns the most read magazine in England and has put a bounty on a photo of the two of them kissing.

Paparazzies don’t have a concept of trespassing, but breaking and entering into a dragon reserve has certain difficulties that can’t be bypassed with an _alohomora_ and a lack of morals. Percy and Oliver spend the rest of the month in the reserve, not daring to go out. Twenty-two days in each other’s company, hiking in the mountains and playing with the girls. Molly and Lucy have decided that Oliver is similar to Charlie in all the right ways, so they like him.

On day nineteen, they kiss. Someone gets a picture of it, but, in his excitement, the photographer wanders into a nest of young dragon carps. He is recued three hours later sans pants or shoes. The photo of their first kiss is lost.

Oliver says he is almost done with his existential crisis but now Percy has one of his own.

You see, there is something Oliver hasn’t said. Something he didn’t mention at all. And Percy doesn’t know if Oliver just hasn’t noticed (it took him two years to realize all the Weasleys were siblings) or if he noticed but… doesn’t care?

There is more than one reason why only Charlie has met the girls.

Even now that Percy has received letters from every family member (including Freaking Aunt Muriel) and even a surprise visit from them (he has a life debt with Charlie for the heads-up) and they have begun the unpleasant work of fixing their relationship; even _now_ , they haven’t met Molly and Lucy.

It’s because of the Weasley cousin they never talk about. The accountant.

Percy knows that it’s perfectly normal. Many wizarding children don’t exhibit any magic until they are at least seven. But he also knows that every single person in his family was levitating toys (Bill, Ron and Ginny) or stopping spilled milk in mid-air (him) or shooting sparks (Charlie and the twins) by the time they were three.

Molly and Lucy had done nothing magical so far. Nothing at all. And Percy knows, in his heart of hearts, that if anyone makes them feel inferior, if anyone dares to say anything against them, he will go the Dark Lord route and kill every single person prejudiced against squibs. He might kill every single wizard and witch and eradicate all magic so his girls won’t feel inferior to anyone. He found in himself the strength to forgive the man who took Audrey’s life, but he won’t do the same for the person who speaks against his children. He can’t.

On Christmas Percy reluctantly agrees to go to England with the girls because Charlie promises he will be there too. It is not easy. It is, in fact, very, very difficult and tense. He is forever grateful at Lee Jordan, who is glued to Fred’s hip cracking jokes and defusing tension. Also, Angelina Johnson takes George and Ginny to the kitchen and informs them they are the biggest idiots she has ever had the misfortune of meeting and that helps to avoid anyone saying something unforgivable they will regret their whole life. On Christmas’ Eve Harry Potter takes everyone’s wands because he is Harry Potter “and I do what I want” which means no one hexes anyone and they can overindulge the punch.

Oh, why bother? The whole thing is terrible and awkward and it hurts. But it is a necessary painful step, either to fix things with time or to say that he tried, actually tried, and never look back at this moment with regret. 

Also, he gets to meet with Oliver. It turns out that Oliver hadn’t noticed the girls’ lack of magic, but he also doesn’t care. Why would he care? Are you- are you supposed to care? Is this another thing Oliver missed because he only thinks about Quidditch? What’s wrong with not having magic in any case? Oliver’s mother is muggle and it is agreed that she is wonderful. 

(Even Potter says so. Percy has no idea of when Harry Potter met Oliver’s mum, but he speaks of her in the highest terms).

You can read about what happened next on issues of 32, 33 & 34 of _Alakazam_ as well as special issues 17, 21, 22 and 25. Draco Malfoy earned 1.5 million galleons with issue 33, setting a record for most successful print in wizarding history. Then he obliterated that record with a single stolen picture of Percy and Oliver’s wedding. He committed around a dozen crimes to get that picture, got drunk on champagne and victory and asked Harry Potter to marry him.

(He also donated all the money to a newly created society for the support and trade education of squibs, but only two people in the world know that).


	7. Draco with Dad Percy

_Ok what about this._

  1. _That Percy moving to America and having 2 kids and then his wife dies thing. But add Draco moving with him. Draco loses his parents and his Godfather and he gets chased out of Britain so he legit doesnt have much left (he was a spy so he didn't make lasting friendships) so Draco is there every step of the way with Percy_
  2. _So they legit see each other as psuedosiblings and Draco is Percy's best man and his daughters Godfather and there for Percy after his wife dies. And vice versa, Percy is there for him when he grieves, when he hurts, and everything. And Draco is Harry's soulmate so after Percy lets his Family meet his daughters. Draco is there and he and Harry go through this long process of forgiveness and learning about each other and all that stuff_
  3. _And like Draco had A MAJOR part in Dumbledore's network just like Percy did. Just from inside the Death Eaters ranks. (Draco could find out anything in there, he's very skilled at it. Much more than Snape was) And the thing is Draco and Percy were partners during the war. They would work, plan, and execute those plans together_
  4. _And i think that after they both left it came out that the both of them had saved countless lives and then nearly all of the British wizarding world feels absolutely guilty cuz they legit chased one of their saviors out so thats a mess on their side._



Mmh. Draco already appeared in Twins Dad Percy as a morally corrupt media tycoon, but he can do both.

The people Draco used to talk to are either dead or in Azkaban thanks to him, he is not speaking to his parents and he has lost all his money. All Draco has left is the knowledge that he contributed to bring Voldemort down, a knowledge that is currently shared with Percy Weasley, the only other surviving member of Dumbledore’s secret spy ring.

Six months after the end of the war Draco receives a note from Percy saying that the tea and coffee are horrible in the States but he is staying there anyway. Draco arrives to the States a year after Percy, officially so they can complain about the tea together. They don’t bother pretending that this will be a short visit, though. Draco has nowhere to go and nowhere to be, he may as well be around the only other person who knows what Draco went through.

Draco is a magnificent story-teller. You kind of have to be to become a spy, but he is much better than Percy. He is also a voracious consumer of stories, printed or on TV. Two months in, he gets a job at a small local newspaper and soon takes over it. He has two aliases because he writes so much that it looks weird if all the top articles are signed by the same person.

Draco falls in love with Audrey the moment he meets her.

“I thought you were gay.” Percy says, not terribly concerned by Draco’s declaration of love to his fiancée.

“I am. That has nothing to do with it.”

It really doesn’t. Audrey understands and agrees, but then again Audrey is in love with Percy and his multiple oddities so she obviously has some peculiar opinions of her own. She is the one who asks Draco to be godfather to their daughters and explains her reasoning because Draco has exhibited enough qualities that Audrey trusts him to raise Molly and Lucy if the situation arise. That’s Audrey. She didn’t participate in the war, she is not haunted by it, but when she chooses a godfather she doesn’t go by friendship or a social need to appease someone. She chooses the person who would ensure her children grew up safe, loved and ready to face the world.

Draco might had cried when she explained it.

And then… Audrey died and Draco disappeared for a whole week. Percy was very worried about him, thought that he might had done something stupid, but he was also busy with his own grief and his two daughters. He couldn’t do anything about it other than worry about Draco.

It was such a relief when Draco returned with red-rimmed eyes and apology for not being there. Percy forgives him instantly because Draco can pick both girls at the same time and keep them entertained while Percy sleeps for the first time in three days.

Draco takes his responsibilities as godfather very seriously. Percival (sometimes he calls Percy Percival to be obnoxious) grew up in poverty so he thinks that his current salary is enough to support his daughters and himself. Which it is, because Percy knows how to save money, but Draco doesn’t think it’s enough. He is not saying that they should be living in a 17th century mansion, but money provides a lot of opportunities and Draco wants his goddaughters to have all the opportunities in the world and the freedom to choose for themselves.

When the girls turn one-year old, Draco sells every single thing of value he has, gets a credit and opens his own paper, _Eurus_ , which soon becomes the most read wizarding paper of the East coast. For the first few months it is just Draco, but soon he can hire three more people to help with the boring details. Percy helps with the accounting because Draco has developed a number of oddities of his own and he trusts only Percy with it. He insists on giving Percy a bonus so every summer he can take a month off and go with the girls to Romania. Draco refuses to go because his name is _Draco_ and Percy’s nice brother works at a dragon reservation and Draco can see the story writing itself.

 _Eurus_ is a huge success, but there are quite a few traditionally inclined wizards who don’t appreciate the liberal editorial line and write often to complain. Draco takes all his savings and opens a second paper, _Merlin’s word_ where he publishes the same ideas he receives in the complaint letters, but with proper differentiation between “you” and “your”. _Merlin’s word_ not only pays for itself, it also generates enough benefits that Draco can open _Gorgol_ , a weekly magazine on African-American Wizarding Issues. In two months, Draco is getting revenue from _Gorgol_ and from all the people hating on _Gorgol_ in _Merlin’s word_ , enough that he can hire a permanent editor for _Gorgol_ and stop staying late at night studying Senegalese magical chants and 1920`s American wizarding law and how its effects are still present today.

When the twins are three, Draco launches _Alakazam_ a snappy sharp magazine about “current issues”. It has good emotional writing, good pictures, and the perfect blend between home advice and research articles to appeal to everyone in the family. People want to hate it, but no one can escape its charm. Nobody knew who Maria Elena Robles Cotán was until she was featured in _Alakazam_ and now she is the first Latina member of MACUSA. 

When Draco started this career, he understood the notion of the press as the fourth power in an abstract way. People can be manipulated with stories and there is power in that. Now he realises that power is very concrete and that many important powerful people will be happy to do him a favour or two just because Draco owns the three most influential media outlets of the East coast.

When the twins are four Draco launches _Alakazam UK_ and opens a Gringgotts account for Molly and Lucy where 10% of the _Alakazam UK_ revenue is deposited directly. It takes a while for _Alakazam UK_ to become successful, though. There are certain topics Draco refuses to write about and those are the topics people are interested in. The villains and heroes of the last war. Harry Potter, Severus Snape, Percy Weasley. Even Draco himself, and he draws the line at that. He is not writing about himself and he certainly is not going to set the rumours straight.

(Also, if people find out that he owns both _Merlin’s word_ and _Gorgol_ they will make him _persona non grata_ in at least seven states).

(Ok, look, Draco is being kind of weird. In the States people only know he owns the news-oriented _Eurus_ and the feature-rich _Alakazam._ He is the powerful and talented media wizard and that’s it. The posh British accent comes as a nice flavourful surprise. Nobody stops to think what it means, what he must had been doing during the Second Voldemort War.)

(In the UK Draco is _Malfoy_. He disappeared for a few years and came back sarcastic and rich, as he always was, with a new toy to play with. Very few people wonder about the gap, about how can he be rich again if he had lost everything. It is in the nature of a Malfoy to avoid punishment. In fact, only Hermione Granger wonders about it. Well, her and Harry Potter but Harry has always suspected Draco of everything. Most people think that _Alakazam UK_ belongs to someone else and that Draco must have seduced his way into the director position.) 

Then, two years after the birth of _Alakazam UK,_ Draco hears that freaking Gaius Firewheel from _Witch Weekly, WITCH WEEKLY,_ has gotten the scoop on Percy and Oliver’s budding romance and Draco breaks down. No. No, no, no. Percy has suffered too much and he should not be bothered during his vacation when he finally, _finally,_ gets himself a new friend other than Draco. No. And if someone is going to profit from his newfound happiness, then that should be his family and no one else.

Draco gives seven promotions, sets his desk on fire, downs a tall glass of coffee, prepares everything so the American businesses can run by themselves (hence the promotions) and portkeys to England with murder in his eyes.

He writes.

The story becomes his, his, Draco’s. No one is reading _Witch Weekly_ ’s inconsistent saccharine writing when _Alakazam_ puts out piece after piece on the psychological toll of becoming a spy, the heroics of Percy Weasley (that had been known for years but somehow look new when _Alakazam_ tells about them) and the glorious, _chivalryc_ , love story forging between Percy and Oliver. People knew Percy had been a good guy during the war, but now they _understand_. There is people crying and demanding reparations for the unsung hero Percival Weasley. _Witch Weekly_ hires a few actors and makes a photo novel about Percy’s adventures. There is a _fan_ club.

Unfortunately, Draco can’t completely avoid the collateral damaged of mentioning his own actions during the war. Most of the time he manages to push the late Severus Snape into the limelight rather than himself, but he is starting to get death-threats so there is at least a couple of dozens of people who know of his true involvement in the war. The Auror office says they want to talk to Draco. Fortunately Draco has been living in the _Alakazam UK_ offices since summer and he has hired two squibs as demented as him who see nothing wrong in hitting people with a broom. No one gets to his office if Celia and Anna don't approve.

When Percy says he is coming to England for Christmas, Draco buys a house on impulse so they won’t have to stay in a hotel. The girls are happy to see Draco because he has the best bedtime stories and they tell him everything about Charlie and Oliver so they can listen to him repeat the story with all the good bits exaggerated.

They had never lived together when they were in the States and mad with grief, but somehow they begin to live together now that they are in England.

It is with this context that Harry and Draco meet again. 

XXX

It’s after New year. Ron wanted to visit Percy and Harry went with him because he had appointed himself as Peace Keeper. He even has a badge and a plastic sword to hit people with in the head.

Harry leaves Ron and Percy awkwardly talking in the kitchen and he wanders into the living room where he finds the twins playing. The game consists on taking a reasonably still adult (in this case a person lying face down on the couch) and baring part of their skin (left arm). With markers, the twins are drawing lines connecting every single mole or freckle available.

Harry consideres for ten seconds before deciding there is nothing wrong with the game. They are Percy’s kids. It is, perhaps, a bit mischievous for what one could expect of Percy’s kids, but there is nothing inherently wrong in drawing on someone.

Soon they have finished joining the dots and they begin the second phase of the game: colouring inside the lines. Harry is put on marker duty, passing them colours as required and ensuring none are lost. He also has some applauded interventions when he points out they risk having the same colour touch.

It is all very nice and the twins are… They are not like the other twins (henceforth know and The Twins with capitals on account of being older and having their own business), but they are lots of fun and sweet and adorably weird. Molls (doesn’t like the name Molly) has a special interest in starts and space travel. Lucy is obsessed with flying and after months of studying birds and comparing them to dragons she has now realised there is also flying insects with very different wing structure, so she is busy exploring that.

Honestly, Harry enjoys talking to them. They offer much better topics of conversation than most adults he knows.

He hands Molls the purple marker only to realise that the human canvas has moved and is staring at him, chin resting on his right hand.

Draco Malfoy.

Harry has been aiding and abetting in the spontaneous decoration of Draco Malfoy. Draco freaking Malfoy, who is looking at him placidly like dragons do, eyes of nacre and pearl and a soft amused smile in his lips.

Harry deposits the markers on the floor and wisely flees to the kitchen, where the conversation is much, much, worse but he doesn’t feel so embarrassed.

He returns the next day because out of all the Weasleys (except Charlie, of course), Ron is the one making more headway in the Patching Up Things With Percy project. It doesn’t escape Harry that Ron’s experience with the war, with leaving Harry and Hermione and then returning, is helping a lot, but apparently Ron still has to realise that.

Draco is once again playing in the living room with the girls and Harry is so confused. Why is the Head of _Alakazam UK_ , former Death Eater Draco Malfoy, playing with dolls on Percy’s living room?

Harry should scratch the Death Eater part because Draco used to be a spy. Good on him. Makes things slightly less awkward.

Harry only stands there, hesitating, for five seconds, before sitting cross-legged in the floor with them. He is soon given a naked doll, a ping pong ball and some wool strings and is told to make a monster. Lucy is busy creating a monster of her own while Molls is doing who knows what with a bunch of popsicle sticks.

Then they play, with Draco’s direction, acting out quite an engrossing narrative. There are two heroine dolls, Mollianda and Lucinda, and a wise old mentor who is so old he can’t leave his house anymore so every time Mollianda and Lucinda need directions they have to climb a mountain to ask the Sage Darco, who insists in speaking in age-appropriate riddles only. The whole story is apparently inserted in a bigger saga involving space travel and old curses. Harry gets to play one of the villains so he mimics Snape’s voice as best as he can. Draco gives him A Look and says nothing, although he smiles quite a lot. He has a nice smile. This may be the first time Harry has seen it.

At the end of the game Draco even brings an unexpected twist so Surreptitious Snake’s character can be incorporated to other storylines. He is still a bad guy, but not so bad that he must be tricked into falling down a volcano, unlike His Darkness, the true villain of the story.

“Merlin’s pants! Why is Draco Malfoy playing with your kids, Percy?”

“He takes his godfather duties very seriously, Ron. Now, try not to piss on today’s peace.”

Thank Merlin’s pants indeed for Ron’s lack of tact. Harry has been dying to ask.

XXX

Next Thursday Harry receives an urgent message from Draco. “Come at once,” says the note, so Harry goes at once to find that George and Bill (but curiously, not Fred) had come to pay a surprise visit to Percy and the visit is not going well.

Not well at all. He can hear someone yelling “asshole” from outside the house.

“Oh, thanks Heaven, you are here,” Draco says the moment he opens the door. A sentence Harry never thought he would hear from Draco Malfoy. He is not sure why he is so fixed on it, though.

Harry hears three more “asshole” and two “twats” before he gets to the living room where the Weasleys are fighting. It’s ugly. The last two times it got this ugly at least they gave him their wands without fighting. But this time he has to wrestle it from Bill’s hands. He doesn’t think that Bill is planning to do anything to Percy, but he also refuses to give up on anything, including his wand.

Harry has been playing Peace Maker for fifteen minutes when Draco pops his head into the living room and announces that he and the girls are going to a pizza place for lunch. Harry makes his decision instantly.

“Wait a second”, he says to Draco. Then he turns around and casts _silencius_ on the others.

“I have been trying for you to use your words, but since you insist on yelling so much, find another way to make peace. I am going for pizza.”

So he leaves Bill, George and Percy muted, wandless, and furious, behind and he goes with Draco and the girls to a pizza place. Lunch is fantastic. He tells a couple of amusing stories to Lucy and Molls, and Draco repeats them with added voices and drama. It’s so good Harry stops talking altogether and instead asks Draco to tell his own version. The time Harry almost swallowed the snitch, the time Ron threw a crocodile heart at Draco during a Potions lessons, the many times a student said something inappropriate before a cat McGonagall, everything Gilderoy Lockhart.

Harry wishes Ron and Hermione were here. Draco makes a wonderful Gilderoy.

Draco wanted to take the girls to a park after lunch, but it’s awfully cold and beginning to rain. He looks at Harry doubtfully because knowing the Weasleys an hour and half might not be enough to tire them out. It is clear that neither of them want to cut the good time short. 

“Who wants to see a baby bat?” blurts Harry.

It turns out everybody wants to see a baby bat so Harry takes them to Grimmauld Place (not too far from their house, they can go walking) and shows them the baby bats currently living under his stairs until Luna can find them a new home. Then, of course, the girls are busy staring at the family tree tapestry (Draco! You are here!) and soon after they are in the living room floor making a family tree of sorts, although rather than family blood lines the girls are following a complex system of rings and vines in which flying ability and coolness are the defining factors, hence why Oliver Wood and Charlie Weasley have the honour of being inside the first ring.

“Harry is a pretty decent flyer,” Draco says from the couch, both hands around a mug. The image makes something inside Harry stir. He likes Draco Malfoy sitting in his couch drinking Harry’s tea from Harry’s favourite mug.

Harry is moved from the third ring to the second, linked with rainbow chain to Draco’s portrait.

XXX

They take the girls back at around eight. Harry is reeling from the discovery that this is actually Draco’s house, so he doesn’t pay much attention to the utter disaster that is the living room. He does notice the swollen knuckles, split lips and red and puppy eyes. Overall it seems that they made some progress so he dispels the muting charm and hands them back their wands. He hugs Percy goodbye but chickens out from hugging Draco because Draco was looking at him once again with that placid dragon smile of his. Then he takes Bill and George with him, forcing them to walk down the street until the cold air makes its effect and they are both calm enough to attempt apparition.

Percy and the girls go back to America soon after. It comes as a surprise for everyone except Ron who, funnily enough, is aware of the academic calendar and knows very well Percy would not let the girls miss school.

Draco, however, Draco stays.

Thus begins an admittedly strange period of running into each other and finding excuses to talk. Harry goes to Draco’s house in his official Auror capacity so he will finally answer their questions, dammit. Draco is exquisitely obnoxious and obstructive but he then invites Harry to the cinema, since Draco doesn’t have anyone else in the country whose company Draco tolerates _and_ is able to go to a muggle cinema without causing embarrassment. Harry convinces Robbards 8The Head Auror) to give Draco’s case to Everett Nightmare who, despite his very cool name and his encyclopaedic knowledge of the Dark Arts, gets on everybody’s nerves by virtue of being the most uncool person to ever step on the Auror Office.

Draco counteracts by offering Everett a job. They don’t know what exactly Draco said, because Everett is one of those conscientious wizards, like Percy, who memorises rules and takes his work very seriously. By all logic Everett should prefer to work in the Ministry and fight the good fight. But he accepts Draco’s offer. He gives legal and magical advice to the editorial board, is what Harry understands. By April, Everett is forbidden from ever entering the state of Tennessee which is not a small feat considering he is still working from London.

(Something about noticing a law discrepancy in curse removal that benefits a social group in particular. Draco is very smug about it.)

Draco is also getting quite a lot of death threats so Harry assigns himself the case. Draco gives him the placid knowing smile, but this time his eyes are shining with heat.

Percy and the girls return in June. Things are much better with the Weasley family by then, but there is still enough tension that Harry feels justified in inviting himself to every event, even if he spends most of the time playing with the twins. He tells Ron about their interest in flying and Ron manages to get in their good graces, (second circle just like Harry) so it can’t be said that Harry was completely self-serving.

During August, Percy and the girls go for their traditional month-long visit to Charlie (and hasn’t Charlie suffered for keeping quiet about it for _years_ ). Draco steals another wizard from the Auror Office, Marion Harpis, and is forced to write an article about himself so people, and specially _Witch Weekly’s_ editor, won’t bother Percy while he snogs Oliver and thinks about what they want to do with their lives.

It seems that what they want to do is date each other. Percy enrols the girls in a muggle school in London and the family moves to England indefinitely.

In September, Harry arrests two wizards on relation to the death threats sent to Draco. He has a very dramatic fight in the middle of Diagon Alley during a storm. All the papers write about it. Two weeks later they discover that Draco’s single purpose when stealing Marion Harpis from the Auror Office was to have someone on the payroll with very lax morals and quick hexes who won’t mind attacking other journalists. Harry has a very stern talk with Draco about it. He is actually angry. He can’t believe he is being forced to defend Rita Skeeter, but you can just hex people out of the way nor throw them into the Thames. The water is disgusting you can’t do that. 

People learn of Percy and Oliver, but they learn about it when and how Draco wants. There is still a fan club and a photo-novel and people making art about them.

In November, Percy says he wants to go to Bath with Oliver to visit Oliver’s family, and Draco grumbles and prints an issue revealing how he manipulated Rosier into disclosing where they had taken the thirteen January prisoners that were later saved by Percy. People _love_ the story. Draco receives forty-six letters and only two of them are threatening. The others are… complimentary. He insists that Harry investigates them anyway.

XXX

It is very obviously revenge for taking Percy’s story from them.

 _Witch Weekly_ publishes a picture of Harry leaving Draco’s house, and of Harry and Draco together during the summer (and, uh, October, and last week). Innocent pictures, really, but they twist them until they look like Harry and Draco are secretly dating and that’s the headline _Witch Weekly_ uses. LIGHT AN DARK. HERO POTTER SUCCUMBS TO DARK HERO MALFOY. And look, if the whole country is going to believe Harry has fallen to Draco’s wiles, if people are going to snicker about it, the least Harry deserves is to get some. So he immediately apparates to Draco’s office and demands to be kissed which Draco is happy to do.

Harry concedes Draco had a point after all in employing Marion Harpis. Draco refuses to publish anything about them, but he is not going to let bloody Gaius Firewheel from _Witch Weekly_ have the story either. 


	8. In which everyone is deaged

_(1) Draco, Harry, Hermione &; Ron (aged 23) all are working on a case. Harry &; Ron are Aurors. Draco &; Hermione are both Healers &; Unspeakables. The case is something like a bunch of Death Eater wannabes trying to resurrect the dark lord. So while busting in on their ritual all 4 are transported to their younger bodies at different times. Draco (5), Ron (7), Hermione (9), Harry (11) (The day before Hagrid comes to fetches him.)_

_(2) Harry and Draco were married so they use a phrase to each other so the other knows that they're the other and then plan a meet in the Room of Requirements. After confirming that Ron and Hermione (Married) are who they are too they go to the meet too. While each playing the roles they had the first time around. They then work out a plan for the war (Since Draco hasn't found a way back they plan to change things)._

_(3) Draco needs to play the bully/death eater and work to save the lives of the war victims. While Harry, Ron and Hermione work out the horcrux ect. Befor and during the war they secretly work to make preperations and stuff to minimize the damage while also playing their parts as school rivals. And they manage to minimize the deaths and they manage to save a lot of familiar faces. Sirius, Remus, Tonks, George ect._

_(4) So after Harry kills Voldemort (He had an argument with Draco cuz Draco was worried he wouldn't come back this time) they're in the grand hall and everyone just sees the golden trio going to Draco with smiles. Ron gives him a handshake, Hermione a Hug, and shockingly Harry kisses him infront of everyone (Draco's parents are like "WTF?") And says "Told you i wouldn't die." "Shut up you bloody git". (In my head its a long fic with a LOT of stuff added. I just wanna know how you'd write this)_

Mmh, yes this would be a long plotty fic, so I won’t detail the structure, just some of the elements I would use to build it.

First, I would have them go back to exactly one month before they turn 11. There is a very nice symmetry there and we avoid having Draco too long in his child’s body. An adult Draco in a 5-year-old body would be terrifying. Lucius would just flee the country.

So they go back to 11 minus one month. Harry and Draco have 1-2 summer months to get settled and start figuring things out, Ron gets around 7 months to think about family dynamics and draft a plan to contact his friends. Hermione has _a whole year_ plus change to rage, study and come up with a definite plan to Get Things Right.

There is a beautiful tense scene as they board the train, because Harry and Ron don’t know if their friend is their old self or their young self. They are both very cautious around each other until Harry notices the way Ron looks at Scabbers and he _knows_. It just takes a couple of loaded comments afterwards to recognize each other. 

Hermione barges in their compartment in her usual way and they have to drop some very heavy hints to remind her they are not alone. They can’t spook Pettigrew. Draco comes by, stares at Harry in silence for a whole minute and then passes him a note saying he can’t find the diary and also he ordered Dobby to go serve Harry, he should be waiting in Hogwarts. It is unclear whether Draco knows this Harry is the old Harry because Draco is, and has always been, kind of odd. It took them a while to discover it, but Draco is just a bunch or random powerful ideas held together with anxiety and fire. Harry loves him so much.

They go to Hogwarts. You would think that in this timeline Harry would be the most belligerent/hostile of them, but it is actually Hermione. Hermione is a nightmare student. She has a list of one hundred and fifty names and she is going to save all of them (except maybe Dumbledore and Snape). She has no time nor attention to waste in silly classes telling her what she already knows. She only comes to class sporadically, aces all her tests and hands out beautiful neat homework that barely took ten minutes out of her day to complete. Teachers hate her (or heavily dislike her), but they can’t expel her. It’s beautiful. The twins develop a crush on her. 

Harry waits patiently until Christmas so Dumbledore can gift him the Invisibility Cloak and then announces that he is not going back to the Dursleys. Dumbledore insists. Harry says softly “by Jove, I will not” and Dumbledore thinks about that exchange for a week. He forgets about it when ten days later there is an incident in Transfiguration class and McGonagall discovers that Ron’s pet rat Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew.

(They were going to wait until Quirrell tried to steal the philosopher’s stone. Hermione insisted they couldn’t deviate too much of the original timeline or they would lose their advantage of knowing what was going to happen. If something was going to change, it was better to attach it to some other important event.

But Harry pointed out that it would be much easier to keep Sirius alive if he had some extra months of freedom and he didn’t have to live as a fugitive and Ron was certain that they would be fine even if they changed everything. It wasn’t just their knowledge of the events to come, it was their knowledge, period, their experience.

Ron is a man now, and adult, and he is kind of freaked out at the shenanigans they did when they were merely children. What were they thinking? Was there no competent adult to point out that they were kids? It shouldn’t be up to them to rescue Sirius or Buckbeak, what in the seven hells.)

Anyway, Sirius is freed and Dumbledore is forced to explain everything about prophecies and love magic and blood protection early, because Harry insists he is going to live with Sirius. Harry agrees to go back to the Dursleys for two weeks, but Sirius has to come with him and no, he will not come as a dog, that’s demeaning. He will spend his time at the Dursleys as a human, thank you very much.

Sirius is the first adult to realise that there is something not quite right about Harry. The others had noticed that Harry was… special. But Sirius is the first one to see through, although he doesn’t know what he is seeing exactly.

Lucius still uses the Diary against the Weasleys, but this time Ron picks it up. Their first week back in Hogwarts, they all go for a nice excursion down to the Basilisk lair. They bring the Diadem, too. Harry speaks to the Basilisk and both horcruxes are destroyed.

The rest of the year is spent plotting. Draco takes on the role of the bully and plays it up to hilarious heights. He picks on everyone, and that’s _everyone_ , except Neville and Luna. Funnily, Cedric Diggory is a big fan of him and always answers to Draco’s banter.

Draco suggests having a Duel Club to Lockhart. There has been no student attacks, of course, but Lockhart loves the idea and Draco wants the opportunity to fight Harry and make ridiculously sexually charged comments. They have five very nice duelling sessions until the curse of the DADA post acts up and professor Lockhart is unavailable the rest of the year.

(Harry tutors everyone in his year so this time people will actually now how to cast a _protego_. Ginny comes to the classes too and is by far his best student).

That summer, Ron has a very long chat with Percy explaining everything. Ron is now eight years older than Percy and understand why his brother fell to the Ministry and rejected his family. The Weasleys had pushed him that way, hadn’t they? Ron also understands that suddenly being nice to Percy and giving him recognition won’t work. It’s too late. But telling Percy they come from another timeline in which Fred died gets Percy’s attention immediately. Percy spends a whole weekend freaking out in silence. (Nobody notices, of course, and boy is Ron appalled at his family dynamics). Come Monday, Percy emerges relatively calm, all things considered. He has given himself a haircut and is resolved to infiltrate the Ministry. 

The locket is destroyed that summer. They let Sirius and Kreacher do it.

They were hoping to have all horcruxes down before Voldemort rose back, but Pettigrew escapes Azkaban and Voldemort comes back a year ahead of schedule. (Early 4th year).

Dumbledore locates the ring. Despite warnings from all of them (and Snape) he still puts the ring on and gets a curse for it. Hermione says if he is going to be like that, she will remove him from her To-Save list.

Barely eight months after Voldemort comes back to power, the Ministry is full of his followers. For now, Voldemort is happy acting from the shadows, but soon he will want more and the four of them want to avoid open war as much as possible.

Percy sends Ron Helga’s cup, broken. Ron asks how he did it in case they ever find themselves in a similar situation (new timeline and all), but Percy only says that he asked politely. That means there are only two (two? Or is it one?) horcruxes remaining. Draco decides to speed things up, before Voldemort stars his terror campaign. He tells his father than Dumbledore has a mysterious ring with an interesting crest and that’s enough to have Voldemort attack Hogwarts with all his might.

It may not seem like a good idea, but if you think about it it’s much better to have dark wizards try to take over a castle than over a cottage where a half-blood family lives. Plus, now they don’t have to sweep Britain looking for Nagini. They can see her perfectly well down in the grounds trying and failing to eat Hagrid.

The battle draws on and almost becomes a siege. The Ministry comes to help, only they help Voldemort’s side, what with being infiltrated and all.

It’s still preferable to the years of the war.

Sirius has been put under a careful and insistent treatment of “Sirius, no”, so he actually stops when he is told to, he doesn’t follow Pettigrew to a trap and he isn’t killed by Bellatrix. Well done, Sirius! Another advantage of Sirius surviving, beyond the fact that he survived!, yay!, is that he gets to save Snape when Voldemort decides he might not be a good double spy after all. Snape _hates_ the idea of owing his life to Sirius. It is very entertaining.

Neville kills Bellatrix Lestrange. Luna kills Nagini (and feels bad for it, and cries, sweet Luna, may she always have a soft heart). Peter Pettigrew dies in a freak accident in which both the giant squid and the twins are involved. Cedric Diggory bullies seven Ministry wizards into switching sides.

Things are going good. There are many wounded, more than the last time, but no dead, not on their side.

Harry knows he will have to die, again. And it will have to be Voldemort. He can’t risk having anyone else cast the curse (could they even mean it?). They have changed so many things… They can’t be sure that all those changes won’t coalesce in this one instant in time. They can’t be sure that Harry will make it back. But Harry still goes, because that’s what he has to do. He tries to make things as similar as possible, act the same way, say the same things. Maybe having Sirius and Moody and Tonks and Lupin alive and well and fighting won’t matter if Harry just follows the script on this.

But just in case it will matter, just in case Harry doesn’t come back this time, he throws some ad lib.

“Hey, Tom,” Harry says, holding his thumb between his index and middle finger. “I’ve got your nose.”

Well, at least he can be sure that Voldemort means it when he cast the killing curse.

The honour of killing Voldemort falls on Hagrid this time. It isn’t pretty.

And Harry comes back. Draco forgives him for risking his live just for having said that line.


	9. Only Draco is deaged

_Omg if an adult Draco woke up in 5 year old Draco's body and he wanted to make his father's life a living hell. Id read that, please please tell us the stuff he'd get up to. (as well as the stuff you would get up to at school, please)_

It would be a nightmare for all involved. Draco, who had fought so much, suffered so much in order to atone not only for his mistakes but those of his family… and he finds himself back! All progress lost! He had broken his back _, literally_ (it was a really dumb idea and Harry was very angry with him) to get Granger to warm up to him. Longbottom had forgiven him! (And Draco doesn’t even know what exactly he did to merit that). Harry had…

Harry had kissed him the weekend before.

And now he is back in his five-year-old body. Not even eleven, when he could see Harry and make a difference. No, he is five, and Draco cries and rages so much that he develops a fever and is incoherent for a week.

Afterwards… Well, you know how parents pride themselves in their children’s achievements? How parents want their children to be better than them? Lucius has found there is a limit to it. Having his son be more eloquent and advanced than any other child his age is great. Having his five-year-old son tell him with impeccable grammar that he, Lucius, will bring the ruin of their house is _not great at all._ Draco looks at him with a cherubic face and eyes that are burning grey, accusing him of crimes that even Narcissa doesn’t know about. Crimes that Lucius had barely begun to plan.

It is terrifying.

It is well known that what muggles call “demonic possessions” are nothing more than a wizard having a little too much fun with an _imperius_. But when Draco grabs Lucius’ wand, goes down to their hidden vault and, and, and _opens_ it! He- he just _casts_ the spell! Draco is five and he is doing magic that many adults struggle with! Oh, then Lucius wants to believe there might be something else.

(Out of all the forbidden things in their vault Draco went straight to the diary the Dark Lord had entrusted Lucius. Straight to it. And he destroyed it that very same night.)

“You failed.” Draco says, hot and angry. He is so pale and soft and full of fire. “You failed at everything and I had to take your place. I was given an impossible task as punishment to _you_ , threatened not only with my death but the whole family, because of _you!”_

“Tenses, darling.” Says Narcissa softly. Narcissa is blind to the monster they have in the house. She doesn’t _see_ it. She is convinced that there is nothing wrong with Draco, that he is just a very powerful seer who is a bit confused with timelines and verb tenses.

Draco is _not_ a seer. Lucius is sure of that because if he were, then he would know that Lucius is thinking of… cleaning up the line. Narcissa is still young and she can give him another son or Lucius can remarry.

He is not a seer, but one day over breakfast Draco looks up and says “It won’t work. Whatever you are plotting, it won’t work. I can’t recall a single plan of yours that worked longer than a month. Kicking Dumbledore from Hogwarts, bribing the Ministry, bringing back the Dark Lord. It never works.”

So Lucius packs up his things and leaves the country quietly.

Narcissa is… _shocked,_ which means she is furious, betrayed, and briefly terrified that she might lose her income and secure position. But once she is reassured that she still holds the house and the fortune she takes a big breath, internally swears that next time she comes across Lucius she will castrate hex him, and steps up into the role of Lady of the House.

She also listens to Draco. She _insists_ that what Draco says has happened is yet to come, but she listens.

Draco wants to get Harry at once, but it is not so easy to find a seemingly normal muggle family in the sea of actually normal muggle families living an hour away from London. In the meantime, Narcissa visits _Flourish and Blotts_ every day for a week until she _finally_ gets there at the same time than the Weasleys. Then it’s a question of dropping a handkerchief and waiting for the bespectacled Weasley to fetch it for her and then, well, he is so eloquent and polite that Narcissa insists on buying young, Percival, was it? She shall buy him a quill. Any quill he wants. Don’t look at the price and just pick whatever quill you like best, young man. You must have a proper quill to write your letters. 

Molly Weasley would rather drag herself through shards of glass than accept a gift from a Malfoy; but one look at Percy tells her that if she takes this from him, if she takes his once chance of having something New and Fancy and Just For Him, he will hate her forever. So Molly relents (as Narcissa knew she would because mothers are predictable). Two weeks later Draco has a play date with Ronald.

“I think you should play Quidditch, Draco, dear.” She says, because horrendous as Lucius’ attitude was, she does recognize that Draco can be a bit off-putting. There isn’t that much talking with Quidditch and Draco is clever enough to let the young Weasley win two out of three times.

It takes thirteen months to find Harry and by then Narcissa has got a foot in both the Weasley’s and Longbottom’s houses. The latter was an excruciating effort and is still a very much work in progress. Narcissa had to let that bulldog of Augusta Lonbottom seer her crying and even now they are one wrong word away of losing all progress, but the children are talking and that was the goal.

She is weighting the pros of buying a house near the Dursleys and just moving there versus the advantage of frequently inviting the Weasley kids to the manor, when she sees the anxious look in her son’s face, a look of urgency and desperation and…

“Draco,” she cries, softly and sadly. Beautiful Draco, six years and two months and with a face like a silver coin. “Draco, dear, do you love this boy? I don’t mean like you love Mummy. Do you…”

“I know what you mean, Mother.” Draco says, serious, he is always so serious. She supposes he has to be to contain the fire burning inside. “I am not a child, I have told you. And I love him with all my heart.”

Oh.

“Then, you shouldn’t meet so soon.” Narcissa says firmly, although inside her heart is aching and she doesn’t know why. “Children who grow together tend to see each other as siblings. Why, your Great Aunt Marthia grew up with Gaius Mulciber, her fiancée, and their marriage was very difficult. I think he tried to poison her in order to marry his lover, or the other way around. I can’t remember. In any case, it is better to wait.”

But Draco doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to wait. He doesn’t want Harry to spend a single day more than necessary in that house where he was miserable and unloved. Whatever it takes, he says. Whatever it takes, even if the price is not loving Draco. Let’s rescue him now.

Narcissa explains that waiting would be much better. There are other things they have to keep in mind, like the return of the Dark Lord and the fact that Harry is linked to him. It can’t be that bad, the muggle house. Just bad enough that Harry will jump easily and eagerly to the wizarding world once it’s presented to him, so he will be all the more willing to sacrifice his…

“oh”, Narcissa says, very softly, not even an exclamation mark or a capital.

“oh”, she repeats.

Internally, she thinks “that bastard”. Dumbledore, of course. It is well known that Dumbledore wants Voldemort’s destruction at whatever cost.

“Draco you _have_ to get yourself invited to the Longbottom’s house.” Narcissa says. Something in her tone finally cuts Draco’s unending cries that they have to get Harry, he will do it himself even if he is just one meter and ten centimeters tall.

Draco is a charming bo-. Draco is charming; boy, child or adult trapped in a kid’s body. He gets an invitation and a layout of the Longbottom’s house. Narcissa then dons a pair of sensible country boots that she doesn’t mind getting dirty with mud and barely sleeps for the next ten days. Her skin suffers from it greatly, mind you.

By day three she has successfully stolen the rat Scabbers from the Burrow. She was going to switch it with a real pet rat, but it escapes and she can’t go chasing the stupid rat. Then she begins a ten-days terror program on the Longbottoms. Footprints on the flowerbeds, upsetting the warding charms on the doors, definite signs of tampering in the chimney… Augusta Longbototm is many things, but she is certainly not a fool and by day four she is at the Ministry demanding help form the Auror office. It takes five freaking days for them to send a couple or aurors down. Narcissa is incensed on her behalf.

She waits until Dumbledore sends Moody down to the house. Moody casts extra protection charms and lays some traps and that night Narcissa pushes a stunned Pettigrew into what seems the nastiest of all of the traps, the one Dumbledore told Moody not to use but he still prepared the moment Dumbledore left. In goes Pettigrew, stunned and wounded because Narcissa is under a lot of stress and she might have tortured him a bit. In goes Pettigrew straight to Moody's trap. 

Narcissa and Draco are there to greet Sirius, their BELOVED cousin (all capitals so no one dares says otherwise) when he is released from Azkaban. She has him shaved, washed and all set in a nice London house before Dumbledore can even begin to say “unfit for taking care of an underage boy”. At six years and four months Harry leaves the Dursleys and moves with his godfather. 

And then it’s all nice for a while until Pettigrew escapes Azkaban, meets Lucius in the continent and together they bring Voldemort back. There is a war. People grow more and more afraid of Draco and he has more attempts on his life than Harry ever had. Narcissa kills Bellatrix and doesn’t even think about it.

And, one day, a young handsome gentleman with shiny black hair arrives accompanied by a sullen lanky young man with streaks of pink in his hair. Draco labels the lanky young man as the ugliest adult he has even seen. The handsome young gentleman introduces himself as Harry Potter and asks if perhaps Draco remembers him?

The burning fire inside Draco disappears. There is only hot air and ash.

The ugly lanky young man is adult Draco, of course, governed by an eight-year-old who has completely destroyed his hair through rebellion and ill-advised experimentation. Harry, _his_ Harry, is just amused at Draco’s indignation that they allowed this to happen. Apparently Child Draco was a handful to deal with.

“I’m sorry it took me so long to find you,” handsome gentleman Harry says, and he is so warm and beautiful that Draco wants to cry. He doesn’t even care about how ugly is adult body is because once he is back in it Harry grabs his hands and doesn’t let go until they are back home.


	10. On Pansy Parkinson

_Hi endrina, I'm a huge fan. And I love all your fics 🧡 I have a question, that may not be that interesting, but we'll let's see. I have a huge fascination about Pansy Parkinson, I think she is this kind of character that is so little developed in the books that we can shape for our own purposes. So I was wondering, do you have any plot ideas for Miss Pansy Parkinson? Or light a headcanon or anything that you would like to share about your thoughts on this character? Much love, tai._

Pansy is sharp in all senses of the word. She is clever. She doesn’t excel academically like Hermione or Draco, but she is clever like Harry is. And she is sharp because she cuts, because she is practical and ruthless when she has to be.

During the Battle of Hogwarts when Voldemort gives them an hour of reprieve and asks them to hand over Harry, she is the one to say “he is there, just grab him”. And then of course all the good little students point their wands at her, but the thing is that she had a point. Of course it could be argued that they could not trust Voldemort’s word, but I don’t think she was wrong in wanting to put a stop to the battle quickly. They are all children in the middle of a fight that should never had been theirs and it seems like Pansy is the only one to realize it.

After the war, Pansy suffers a lot of anxiety. Like, a lot. The world has changed and with it the answers to many social questions. Before, Pansy knew what it took to succeed in life: blood pedigree, a cute face, magical talent, the right friends. Now the right friends are the wrong ones and Neville Longbottom is heading a committee of international cooperation. O_____o She doesn’t know what she has to do and she hates it. She cries a lot and it takes her five years to realize that she cried because freedom hurts, because making your own choices is scary, because when you are in a bad place you can’t afford the energy for crying. You only cry when you arrive home.

At some point, I like to imagine that she is in muggle London overwhelmed by all the people moving around her with a purpose, hating that there are so many familiar things and even more different marvelous things (Pansy is _obsessed_ with Claire’s which for those who don’t know it’s a chain shop of jewelry and beauty accessories for teenagers. Wizards, or actually, witches have jewelry shops, but nothing like this, with packs of seven different colours of lip gloss. Pansy loves it). She is in central London and she overhears a couple of films students (not that she knows what films are or that there are people studying them) quote “everything must change so that everything can remain the same” and Pansy has a freaking realization and every Claire’s shop in a 10 kilometers radius starts shining with different colours, not that many of the customers notice.

She joins the SPEW much to Hermione Granger’s horror. This has the dual benefit of showing to the world that Pansy is a modern witch who has broken with the binds of the past _and_ generating the already mentioned Granger horror. She even comes to care about house-elf welfare. Pansy still uses house-elf labour but her two house-elves have livery so it is obvious at first glance that 1) they are free 2) they are also exceedingly well paid and well treated since Pansy had put actual gold embroidery in their cuffs. Granger has a fit over it but the design proves popular and Pansy becomes something of a fashion trend setter. People buy her designs. Narcissa Malfoy commissions a matching set of fall dresses and livery and is the lady of the season.

Sometimes I see Pansy as a lesbian and in that case she gets with a muggle catholic girl from Norther Ireland who has her own painful experiences about war and rejection and making your own way in the world. Other times I just see Pansy somewhere in the asexual spectrum and not very interested in exploring it. Pansy arrives to adulthood exhausted and she finds people too tiring. She has two cats, befriends Hermione Granger despite herself because they both like cats and is the only person who ever says the naked true to Draco’s face, something that he doesn’t enjoy but he appreciates. 


	11. The trauma they must have

_Like im sure that th golden trio and everyone their age has ptsd or depression or something. Now i have a prompt, Draco suffers from Ptsd and dissociation (He was under so much stress at the manor with Voldemort) and when he and Harry stard dating Harry only knows about the ptsd and he finds out about the dissociation by witnessing it happen and lets just say hes a good boyfriend._

Mmh… This will be a very rough draft because I would usually do a lot more research of the condition. The obvious first step is reading medical descriptions, but I also like to read first-hand testimonials of people living with it so I can get a closer feeling.

Considering all the things Harry has gone through, he is surprisingly healthy. He does have PTSD and some anxiety, but he copes really well. He and Neville Longbottom. They are suspiciously well adjusted and it gives rise to some rumours that there might be _something_ about them, something hidden in their nature which is why the Dark Lord had to choose between the two of them as his enemy.

Meanwhile, Draco started disassociating the first night Voldemort moved to Malfoy Manor and kept living outside his body until five months after the end of the war when he violently got back to himself in order to save Severus Snape’s life (now, there is a bad mental case if there ever was one). He briefly (and also violently) got back to his body during the war when Harry was captured and brought to the manor and Draco recognized him. Draco is quite certain that he was in his body then, experiencing everything, because he distinctly remembers the feeling of his spine trying to dissolve out of terror.

Harry finds out that Draco disassociates in the most ridiculous way. It’s raining, Harry had a long night (he was helping Luna and Hannah Abbot deal with three warfles in the attic and, ah, never mind, it doesn’t matter) and he just wants an indulgent serving of fish and chips and to snog Draco. But he forgot to add vinegar at the shop and he doesn’t have any at home, so he asks Draco to kindly turn some of that wine Aunt Petunia gifted him into vinegar (it’s half-way there anyway) and Draco says he doesn’t know how to do that which is freaking scandalous because 1) It’s a 6th year spell and 2) Harry saw Draco do it last Sunday while he was cooking them that amazing, amazing, meal.

“I… I don’t remember much of 6th year. Or the 7th.” Draco says drily. He is always so dry and detached when talking about the war, and Oh My God Draco! Did you zone out on me?

“Of course not.” Draco says all prim. He turns so prim when he is annoyed. It’s really hot. 

“But you were out last Sunday.”

“While I cooked, yes.” He admits. He is actually tying the buttons of his sleeves so he can be even more straight-laced, which is something he does when he is nervous. The first few times they went out Draco was impeccably dressed and Harry had a lot of fun messing his attire. “I was certainly there for other, er, activities.”

Which is a relief because they had very nice sex and Harry would like to think they were both present for it. 

Harry does get his vinegar because if Draco can do it when he is “out” he can certainly do it the rest of the time. Plus, Draco is very smart so he gets it on the third try. And that’s it. Harry kisses him and once it’s clear that Harry is going to insist on being annoyingly reasonable and happy Draco begins to relax.

He gets better, Draco does, with time. He has less episodes and he copes much better with threats (real and perceived) and he regains more and more memories and this is why, two years in the relationship and planning to move together, _someone_ discovers that _someone else_ might have taken vigilantism during the war and never actually stopped. Bloody hell, Draco, there is a five-wizard team dedicated to finding the elusive Silver Bandit. The Ministry has Questions, Draco. You captured Walden MacNair and delivered him in an iron box to the Auror office with a mocking note. Of course they want to arrest you, vigilantism is against the law and there was nasty name calling in that note. Yes I laughed at it, but nevertheless.


	12. The cliche raining declaration

_Omg can you please give me a cliche raining scene of drarry filled with emotion and all that stuff. Like what im seeing in my head is that Draco and Harry have danced around each other for years and now its come to a breaking point and they're screaming emotionaly at each other in the rain (dramatic little shits) and it just ends up with them snogging and working it out and Ron is like "Fucking finally" with the duos other friends just staring at them from a random balcony_

Ah, but you see those scenes are quite silly when isolated. To get that punching “fucking finally” feeling there has to be yearning before, and misunderstandings, and longing, so much longing, so when the idiots get to pour their silly hearts out it does feel like a reward.

Before the declaration we need the plot, any plot. Maybe someone is missing. Yes. A witch goes missing, Laura Hale. Two years younger than Harry, so he doesn’t remember her. But then Susan Bones goes missing too and Harry knows Susan well. Plus she is from the Bones family, so all alarms go off.

They begin to investigate. Harry, of course, and probably Ron and some other Auror. Something dark and wicked is going on. They follow what little traces there are to an abandoned manor full of nasty curses. After four miserable hours fighting their way in, they arrive to a well lit room and find Draco Malfoy standing there.

“You are a week late at least,” Draco says, and he hands them a shoe that might belong to Susan Bones.

Despite what the initial impression suggests, Draco isn’t there in any guilty business. He is doing an investigation of his own. It turns out that Goyle is missing too and only Draco is searching for him because, well because it’s Goyle. Because he is male (although Harry argues he would look just as hard into wizards’ disappearances), and a Slytherin (yeah, they are not a priority) and ugly (uh, never thought of that). So Draco didn’t bother reporting Goyle missing and he just started looking for him by himself.

This is not the first time Draco and Harry came across each other. It is unclear what Draco does these days for a living, but his businesses have a tendency to bump against Harry’s. However, this is a side of Draco Harry had never seen, loyal and kind and brave. Harry is paying attention.

As they progress in the investigation things turn more and more dangerous. Draco probably saves Ron from a curse, even if he does it by hexing him out of the way (what? A stinging hex is quick and much less dangerous than an actual disintegration curse). 

Harry begins to believe the unbelievable. Draco admits that Goyle has no virtues, but Draco is still relentless in his search and insists that, in a way, Goyle is his responsibility. There is affection there, and tenderness, even when Draco says that Goyle is ambitious and stupid and that is a deadly combination. Draco says he owes it to Goyle, because poor stupid Goyle would have done the same for him.

Okay, Draco can’t possibly be in love with Goyle, can he? And, in any case, what is it to Harry? Harry certainly does not care what one Mister Malfoy does with his affections.

Here there would be a scene in which Draco tragically misinterprets something Harry says. Those scenes tend to be cheap, so it would have to be well laid beforehand. Maybe the press is asking Harry about his engagement to a certain Weasley and Harry doesn’t bother denying it because he can’t disclose the one good clue they have got for the investigation. Draco knows it is not Ginny and since Harry is being so secretive he quite logically assumes Harry is in a secret relationship with Ron. Something like that.

And then, oh then they find Goyle and he is dead.

Draco knew it. Goyle was ambitious and stupid and that made him extremely easy to manipulate. They think that Goyle might have died heroically. That he stood up to whoever was doing this, that he tried to save the witches. (Witch? They know at least one of them is alive but they can’t be sure about the two of them).

Draco seems quite composed and unaffected by the discovery, but he also storms outside and when Harry goes to tell him that they had moved Goyle’s body it is obvious that Draco had been crying.

And, look, Harry is still thinking about what Draco said: that nobody would look for Goyle because he was ugly. Draco was right and Harry can’t stop thinking about it. (When he is not thinking about the horrible wicked business at hand or the fact that Draco is amazingly skilled and Harry has a competence kink). Harry already made the mistake of overlooking Goyle because of his looks once (and brains and ethics and talents, to be fair). He is not doing it again. There were obviously some hidden depths to Goyle and Draco is mourning him.

(But why does it hurt? Harry’s heart is sore and it can’t be merely the worry about the case).

They are running out of time and they are not getting any closer. Ron comes up with a very smart plan that only requires some reckless risk on their part, but Ron is quite sure he will make it. He is also extremely indignant when Draco slips out and takes _his place._ That was Ron’s plan. Ron was going to take the dangerous role. How dare Draco go in his place?

(Ah, but Draco thinks that Ron and Harry are together. So of course he protects Ron.)

The plan is a success, thanks Merlin. Draco is wounded, but he survives and so do Laura and Susan. The press is there. (They may have set a historical building on fire). Draco insists he only needs a potion and that he is going home. And this is it. Harry can feel it, the moment escaping through his fingers. He knows that if he lets Draco go this time, he won’t come back.

“No,” he says, almost a whisper. His throat his hoarse from the smoke. There is a bleeding cut on his lip.

When Draco looks at him, he is so tired.

“Don’t go.” Harry begs. He is tired too. He is exhausted. Someone has cast a raining spell to put the flames out. Draco is just looking at him silently and Harry can’t find the words so he grabs Draco’s hand. Draco’s eyes widen and he immediately tries to free his hand, but Harry’s grasp tightens and Draco doesn’t fight it.

“What is this?” Draco says in a murmur. Why is it that while Harry can only manage whispers, Draco murmurs and susurrates?

But Harry still can’t find the words so Draco gets his hand free and turns away and goes. He is leaving. He is truly leaving. And what was that thing he said two days ago? When they were fighting their way out of that flooded corridor? Ah, yes, that he had nothing left here and by “here” he meant England. So Draco is going to leave the country after this and Harry will have let him, like an idiot, because Draco is far braver than he is.

“I LOVE YOU!!”

Harry’s scream comes out as a croak. He should really take a soothing potion.

“What?” Draco has stopped in his tracks and is looking over his shoulder.

“I love you. Don’t go.”

“You love me!?” Draco’s voice is quite loud too. Half incredulity and half temporary deafness due to the explosion.

Harry nods and since he is resolved to not being a dirty coward, he says it. “Yes.”

Draco crosses the distance between them in just two long steps. His hands are on Harry’s face and he kisses him. A good proper kiss. The rain is plastering Harry’s hair to his forehead and his glasses are full of droplets and he can’t see. He throws his arms around Draco because he is not slipping away, he won’t let him. Draco takes the chance to dip him, the bastard, so all the journalists get a pretty nice photo of Harry hanging to Draco for dear life kissing in the rain, a building on fire in the background.


	13. On Draco's pets

_So i once read a fic where Draco had a small pet and now i really wanna read something where he just keeps getting small pets. He's got an Elf owl, a rusty spotted cat, a small snake (Dk any small snake breeds), a squirrel, a guinea pig, a Pygmy Rabbit, 2 SUGAR GLIDERS, a Fennec Fox, a ferret. Like ik this makes no sence but i legit wanna read a gaint crack fic where he just keeps getting small animals and everyone is just like "????"_

But, but, but, Draco is not collecting tiny animals. There is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Draco has an elf owl because a respectable independent wizard must have an owl, and after the eagle owl from his youth he wanted something different. Nothing else to it.

He _does not have_ a rusty spotted cat. It is a wild animal, a threatened wild animal, and it would be irresponsible to have one as a pet. Aramis’ previous owner (Aramis is Draco’s rusty-spotted cat) was an idiot and Draco took great pleasure in winning Aramis in a bet. He tried to move Aramis to an adequate environment, but by then time he figured out how to contact the zoo Aramis had grown too used to Draco and it would be cruel to part from him.

There are merely three native snakes in Britain: the adder, the barred grass snake and the smooth snake. Cora, at 55 cm is a bit short for a smooth snake, but she is still lovely. Draco found her by chance in a basket of motted goldcrest eggs he had ordered at the apothecary and what was he supposed to do then? Kill her? She is not poisonous, she mostly eats mice and small lizards and, according to Harry Potter, calls Draco “Sun”. Cora thinks that Draco is made of the sun, that he is some sort of Sun God. Of course Draco will behave accordingly. Not many people believe in him, so he will take Cora’s admiration any day.

Draco does not have a squirrel. Renata belongs to herself. She just likes to sit with Draco when he is reading in the manor’s garden. Sometimes, if she has something to tell him, she climbs to his window and knocks. No, there is not a parseltongue for squirrels, that’s stupid, and Draco is not a squirrel-tongue, he just understands her very well. He also suspects that Hermione’s [gift of a hat](https://www.google.com/search?q=kronk+squirell&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwj0yp7XgZztAhUJCxQKHXsTBukQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=kronk+squirell&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzoECCMQJzoECAAQQzoCCAA6BAgAEB46BggAEAUQHjoGCAAQCBAeUKQIWOkQYM8SaABwAHgAgAHeAYgB3wmSAQUwLjUuMpgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=HGy9X_TMJYmWUPummMgO&bih=902&biw=910&hl=es) is some sort of stupid hidden joke, but Renata and Draco are above such childish humour.

The guinea pig belongs to Teddy. Only Teddy, odd child that he is, is terrified of rodents. Draco doesn’t know why he is the one stuck with Roderick when Teddy has a perfectly nice godfather right there who should take his responsibilities more seriously. It’s preposterous.

(Did he call Harry perfectly nice? Draco is sure he did not).

The pigmy rabbit might be Draco’s fault. After Roderick’s fiasco, Draco decided to acquire a properly fluffy and cute pet for Teddy. But apparently pygmy bunnies have enough rodent-like qualities to scare Teddy, so Draco has Ferdinand’s wardenship until such a time when Teddy is grown past his silly rodent aversion and realizes how cute Ferdinand is.

The sugar glides were a fashion accessory of some witch or another in a Ministry gala. (Ok, they belonged to Felicity Bullstrode-Greengrass). They jumped from her shoulders into a passing drink tray and from there to the floor, scampered under a table, climbed up a pillar, glided beautifully across the hall miraculously avoiding any and all spells trying to catch them, landed on Justin Finch-Fletchley’s head, jumped into a flower arrangement and scurried between the decorations until they arrived near the balcony door where Draco was standing, bored out of his mind and debating whether or not he should take up smoking or if he should jump out of the balcony instead to see what would happen.

(The Ministry of Magic is underground, so the panorama in windows and balconies is the result of a spell).

The sugar gliders couldn’t escape through the balcony route and after all that effort, how could Draco not offer them shelter under his coat? It’s practically his duty as a Slytherin to secret away two living fashion accessories and later train them into becoming _criminal_ accessories. Ha. Haha.

Draco won Sana, the cheeky fennec fox, from the same arrogant wizard who used to own Aramis. This time Draco also got him arrested because that was his actual purpose in meeting him, to get him to confess where he was keeping the cargo. The bet was a distraction until the Aurors arrived, and Draco won fair and square. He asked Ron Weasley what was he supposed to do with her, but apparently they were busy, Draco, some of them had to break a poison curse before they could even begin to move the cargo, Draco, just take the weird rabbit cat and go.

So Draco took Sana in his arms and left. She likes Aramis well enough and they spend their days napping under a sun ray in the library.

Oddly enough, Draco will admit that he has a pet ferret, but only because that’s preferable to admitting that one idle summer he got it in his head that he should try becoming an animagus (unregistered, of course, because he might not be a dark wizard but he is far from reformed) and it turned out that is his animagus form.

So, as you can see, Draco doesn’t have any pets. He has a ferret, but that’s a lie.


	14. Draco and It

_The ask was mostly just like a crossover idea. Like what if Draco used to go on holiday to Derry when he was young and he ended up befriending the losers and everything happens the way it does in the movie. Then after he goes to school he forgets them and then the events of IT 2 happens (Just with Draco added again). I was just curious what kind of story it would be._

To me, the hardest point in the crossover is explaining Draco’s presence in Derry, _Maine_. English people are very happy to stay in the island and if they ever get out at all, they prefer to go somewhere where they can get horrible sunburn. Considering the Malfoys are pureblood and hold traditional ideas, it’s hard to imagine them going to the States for vacation, especially if it’s an out-of-the-way place.

So there would have to be a reason for Draco to be there and that reason is Dear Aunt Virginia. Both Lucius and Narcissa call her Aunt so it’s unclear what, if any, is their familial relation. Dear Aunt Virginia is _old_ and _mean_ and _powerfu_ l, and Draco will greatly benefit from the terrifying experience of being invited to her house to spend the summer. Dear Aunt Virginia only accepts a child per generation, two at most, and it was an incredible win on Lucius’ part that Draco, and not Theo, was chosen.

Draco learns a lot from Dear Aunt Virginia and he is also traumatized for life.

Under normal circumstances Draco would never have befriended the Losers. Lucius has been instilling in Draco a bully sense for years. But Draco is scared and upset and lonely and he is quite glad to find people who are going through an equally bad time.

Draco couldn’t explain why, after the fall of the Dark Lord, he chose to revisit the place where he was so miserable and scared. Perhaps it’s because he wants to know if Dear Aunt Virginia is as terrifying as he remembers. Perhaps he just wants to feel anything, anything at all, after two years of supressing every emotion around the Dark Lord.

Dear Aunt Virginia remains a terrifying cruel dark witch who, most definitely, is not human anymore. Draco is mildly surprised to find he is inured to her, however. He supposes that once you have seen a Dark Lord drop dead, with a corpse and everything, all dark beings lose their hold.

He meets the Losers again and they tell him everything about their childhood encounter with It. It’s not as if Draco bothered to keep his magic a secret back then, so they feel comfortable sharing their supernatural experience with Draco. He listens seriously and declares that the scary clown must be a boggart and it should be easy enough to destroy it. He will show them. Beverly can use Draco’s wand if she wants. She is almost a witch in any case.

The clown is most definitely not a boggart. They come to this conclusion when Draco’s _riddikulous_ doesn’t work on It at all, the clown almost kills Draco and Mike _and_ also fails to transform into any of Draco’s actual fears. Sure, the clown invokes many of Draco’s terrors, but not the true good ones. None of Aunt Bella saying that it is obviously Harry Potter and Draco will be punished for his lie, none of Mother coming to tell him that they had to hand Lovegood to the Averies.

So the clown uses fear, yes, but a very manageable fear.

Still, Draco almost dies (Mike too). Thank Heavens for Bill’s deep-seated rage. He launched himself against the clown and almost kicked (and bit) it into submission. At the very least he made it release Mike and Draco.

They return to the hotel confused and tired. As soon as Draco sits on the floor a nineteen century candlestick-style telephone appears on the wall and begins to ring. It is Dear Aunt Virginia, who laughs at Draco for ten minutes and hangs-up.

Draco is so pissed.

Mike suggest using a ritual. Draco wants to use fire. The vote is split 50/50 so they agree to do both. They go down to the sewers, make the ritual, and immediately after they set everything on fire with a flame-thrower. You would think that Draco could have used _incendio_ , but he prefers to reserve his magic to protect his friends from burns. Plus, there is also something ritualistic and liberating in burning everything down yourself. Ben has Costco membership and they got like fifty propane tanks.

Even after the fire, the thing that used to be a clown is still twitching. Eddie leans down and grabs its heart (gross) and rips it from its chest making a soft “gloup” sound (extra gross). The creature dies.

Everybody makes it out alive and well. Dear Aunt Virginia calls again (this time the telephone is simply hovering in the air). Draco takes the receiver and drops it, letting the whole thing hang there. He is done answering to old and stuffy cruel people. Bill murmurs that Aunt Virginia better watch out because he plans to stay in Derry.

They celebrate at a Red Robin, where everyone tells Draco that it is a chain restaurant and not very good and he should try some proper local cuisine instead, but Draco loves it. The waitress gives him an extra little flag to put on his burger.

Draco promises he will find some wizarding therapist he can refer them to, because they all need therapy and they can’t unload this on some poor muggle. He is not sure they have therapists in the wizarding world, but he will ask around. He will even ask Granger if he has to.

The end.

(He ends up having to ask Granger about therapists. She lingers a lot on the not-boggart and Draco should give a report and this should be properly documented, but she also gives Draco a couple of names so her overbearing is fine.)


End file.
